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 served as a residence for students. Pitt remodeled it to house the School of Dental Medicine and School of Pharmacy in 1961-1962. The Salk Hall Annex, a major renovation and three-story addition designed by the architectural firm Deeter, Ritchey, and Sippel for the Dental School, was completed the Terrace Street side of the building in 1967 for a cost of over $5 million ($ million today). Today, it serves as a main entrance for Salk Hall and the dental clinics. A new $50.6 million ($ million today) addition and renovation to Salk Hall was announced in January 2010. It will