Medicine: Exit Polio?

On the strength of reports through late October, the Public Health Service predicted last week that the 1955 U.S. polio epidemic will prove to have been the lightest in four years. So far reported: 25,727 cases v. 33,078 for the same period in 1954. Projecting to the calendar year's end.* PHS foresaw a total of about 29,000 cases—in the same range as 1951's low tally of 28,386. Equally encouraging: the polio mortality rate in 1955 is expected to be the lowest in several years, with 750 to 800 deaths v. 1,500 last year.

The Salk vaccine had nothing to do with most...

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