Jonas Salk when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered one of the most frightening public health problems in the world. In the postwar United States, annual epidemics were increasingly devastating. The 1952 U.S. epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis, with most of its victims being children. The "public reaction was to a plague", said historian William L. O'Neill. "Citizens of urban areas were to be terrified every summer when this frightful visitor returned." According to a 2009 PBS
Salk Hall include the construction of an research tower in the parking area behind the existing building by Ballinger Architects with associates DRS Architects. The new tower is planned to house laboratories and support spaces relocated from their current home in Salk Hall in order to free up space for additional classrooms and offices in the original structure. The target completion date is July, 2014. A dental museum is housed in the first floor reception area of Salk Hall. The museum contains a variety of original dental artifacts, including a c. 1910 dental chair, and x-ray machine and instrument cabinet from the