Cold War tensions and the polio vaccine Cold War tensions and the polio vaccine Polio (Infantile paralysis or poliomyelitis) epidemics were a concern during the summer months for children globally, with records of polio from the Egyptians and Greeks to the 1950s epidemics. In the summer of 1921, this epidemic became notorious when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Democratic contender for the vice presidency, was struck down by polio at the age of 39. Two U.S. virologists, Jonas Salk of the University of Pittsburgh and Albert B. Sabin of the University of Cincinnati emerged as the most prominent among dozens of American researchers on the quest for a
David Bruce (microbiologist) David Bruce (microbiologist) Major-General Sir David Bruce (29 May 1855 in Melbourne – 27 November 1931 in London) was a Scottish pathologist and microbiologist who investigated Malta fever (later called brucellosis in his honour) and African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in animals). He discovered a protozoan parasite transmitted by insects, later named "Trypanosoma brucei" after him. Working in the Army Medical Service and the Royal Army Medical Corps, his major scientific collaborator was his microbiologist wife Mary Elizabeth Bruce ("née" Steele), with whom he published more than thirty technical papers. Bruce was born in Melbourne, Australia to