Model organism anticonvulsant properties of lithium salts, which revolutionized the treatment of bipolar disorder, replacing the previous treatments of lobotomy or electroconvulsive therapy. Modern general anaesthetics, such as halothane and related compounds, were also developed through studies on model organisms, and are necessary for modern, complex surgical operations. In the 1940s, Jonas Salk used rhesus monkey studies to isolate the most virulent forms of the polio virus, which led to his creation of a polio vaccine. The vaccine, which was made publicly available in 1955, reduced the incidence of polio 15-fold in the United States over the following five years. Albert Sabin
Jonas Salk "I had an opportunity to spend time in elective periods in my last year in medical school, in a laboratory that was involved in studies on influenza. The influenza virus had just been discovered about a few years before that. And, I saw the opportunity at that time to test the question as to whether we could destroy the virus infectivity and still immunize. And so, by carefully designed experiments, we found it was possible to do so." In 1941, during his postgraduate work in virology, Salk chose a two-month elective to work in the laboratory of Thomas Francis at