Jonas Salk vaccine. A few weeks later, Salk injected children at the Polk State School for the retarded and feeble-minded. In 1954 he tested the vaccine on about one million children, known as the polio pioneers. The vaccine was announced as safe on April 12, 1955. The project became large, involving 100 million contributors to the March of Dimes, and 7 million volunteers. The foundation allowed itself to go into debt to finance the final research required to develop the Salk vaccine. Salk worked incessantly for two and a half years. Salk's inactivated polio vaccine was the first vaccine for the disease;
Salk Hall Roosevelt's Public Works Administration. The 225-bed hospital was originally part of the Medical Center associated with the University and was intended to be used primarily to treat communicable diseases. However, when antibiotics virtually eliminated the need to quarantine patients, the building had become a financial burden on the city. Therefore, in September 1949, work began on remodeling the building, and it temporarily housed Pitt's School of Public Health. In October 1957, the Municipal Hospital was formally acquired from the city for $1.3 million ($ million today) and renamed Jonas Salk Hall. For a time, the upper floors of the building