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MEMORIAL DAY

 

Remembering those who gave

so much of themselves for all of us.

 

Dr. Jonas Salk.

 

Mother Theresa

 

Martin Luther King


 

 

Jonas Salk
1914 - 1995

 

Jonas Salk is among the most

venerated medical scientists

of the century.

 

Though his first words were reported

to be "dirt, dirt," his early

thoughts were not on studying germs

but on going into law.

 

He became interested in biology

and chemistry, however,

and decided to go into research.

 

He went to New York University

medical school for training.

 

There in 1938 he began working

with microbiologist

 

Image result for thomas francis microbiologist

        Thomas Francis, Jr.,

who was looking for an influenza vaccine.

 

They developed one that was used in

the armed forces

during World War II.

 

In 1947 Salk became the head of the

Virus Research Lab

at the University of Pittsburgh.

 

He worked on improving the

flu vaccine and began to study

poliovirus with hopes of creating

a vaccine against that disease, as well.

 

Salk applied findings from many

other scientists to this problem.

 

From some he found a way to produce

large quantities of the virus;

from others a way to kill the virus

with formaldehyde so

that it remained intact enough

to cause a response in humans.

 

In 1952 he first inoculated volunteers,

including himself, his wife,

and their three sons, with a

polio vaccine made from this killed virus.

 

Everyone who received the test vaccine

began producing

antibodies to the disease,

yet no one became ill.

 

The vaccine seemed safe and effective.

 

The following year he published

the results in the

Journal of the American Medical Association,

and nationwide

testing was carried out.

 

Since the turn of the century,

polio outbreaks had grown more

frequent and more devastating.

 

In 1952, some estimates recorded 57,628 cases,

making it the

worst year yet.

 

People were very anxious for a breakthrough

against polio.

 

Salk's former mentor Thomas Francis, Jr.,

directed the mass

vaccination of schoolchildren.

 

Salk's vaccine was soon replaced by

a variation developed

 

Image result for albert sabin polio vaccine

by Albert Sabin that

could be taken orally.

 

There were pros and cons to each,

but the oral vaccination won out.

 

In 1963, still somewhat alienated from

the medical community,

Salk founded the

Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in

La Jolla, California.

 

 "I couldn't possibly have become a

member of this institute if I

hadn't founded it myself," he said.

 

Jonas Salk died of congestive

heart failure in 1995.

 

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 Mother Teresa
 1910 - 1997
 

 

Mother Teresa, winner of the

Nobel Peace Prize, died in

her convent in India.  

She was 87. 

 

Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910

in Skopje, Yugoslavia,

she joined the Sisters of Loreto in 1928.  

 

She took the name "Teresa" after

St. Teresa of Lesiux,

patroness of the Missionaries. 

 

In 1948, she came across a half-dead

woman lying in front of

a Calcutta hospital.

 

She stayed with the woman until she died.

 

From that point on,

she dedicated the majority of her life to

helping the poorest of the poor in India,

thus gaining her the name

"Saint of the Gutters."

 

She founded an order of nuns called the

Missionaries of Charity

in Calcutta, India

dedicated to serving the poor.

 

Almost 50 years later, the

Missionaries of Charity have grown from

12 sisters in India to over 3,000 in

517 missions throughout

100 countries worldwide.

 

 

 


 

 

Martin Luther King
1929-1968

 

At the age of thirty-five,

Martin Luther King, Jr.,

was the youngest

man to have received the

Nobel Peace Prize.

 

When notified of his selection,

he announced that he would turn

over the prize money of $54,123 to

the furtherance of the civil rights movement.


 

In 1957 he was elected president of the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference,

an organization formed to provide

new leadership for the now burgeoning

civil rights movement.

 

The ideals for this organization

he took from Christianity;

its operational techniques from Gandhi.

 

In the eleven-year period between

1957 and 1968, King traveled over

six million miles and spoke

over twenty-five hundred times,

appearing wherever there was injustice,

protest, and action; and

meanwhile he wrote five books

as well as numerous articles.

 

In these years, he led a massive protest

in Birmingham, Alabama,

that caught the attention of

the entire world, providing what he called a

coalition of conscience.

and inspiring his

"Letter from a Birmingham Jail",

a manifesto of the Negro revolution.

 

He planned the drives in Alabama

for the registration of Negroes as voters;

he directed the peaceful march on

Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to

whom he delivered his address,

"l Have a Dream".

 

He conferred with

President John F. Kennedy

and campaigned for

President Lyndon B. Johnson.

 

He was arrested upwards of

twenty times and assaulted at least four times;

he was awarded five honorary degrees;

was named Man of the Year by

Time magazine in 1963;

and became not only the symbolic leader

of American blacks but also a world figure.


 

On the evening of April 4, 1968,

while standing on the balcony of

his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee,

where he was to lead a

protest march in sympathy

with striking garbage workers of that city,

he was assassinated.

 

                                                     


 

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INDEX

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu

Albert Sabin

Albert Sabin

Dr Jonas Salk

Dr Jonas Salk

Ghandi

Ghandi

John F Kennedy

John F Kennedy

Journal of The American Medical Association

 

Lyndon B Johnson

Lyndon B Johnson

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King

Missionarys of Charity  Calcutta India

 

Mother Theresa

Mother Theresa

New York University

 

Public Broadcasting Services People and Discoveries

 

Salk Institute for Biological Sciences

 

Sisters of Loreto

 

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

 

Thomas Francis Jr

Thomas Francis Jr

Time Magazine

 

University of Pittsburgh Virus Research Lab