Sometimes at school all the children would be told to walk in a line to "Room 4." Instant terror would descend; we knew that in "Room 4" we would have to "get a shot." We didn't know this then, but Dr. Jonas Salk was operating out of the University of Pittsburgh and working on a vaccine for poliomyelitis. I recently read that all the children in the Pittsburgh Public School System were Dr. Salk's testing group. 1,88O, OOO children participated, making this the largest field experiment of that time.

As we all know, Dr. Salk, whose parents came to the United States and worked as garment workers in New York City, was successful.