ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin

Stephen Whiteside 28.10.2011

War is over. Normal life
Now at last begins to flow;
Still two seats of sorrow, strife -
Atomic bombs...and polio.

Polio, each summer season,
Plays its devastating game;
Strikes with lack of rhyme or reason,
Leaves it victims dead or lame.

Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin,
Children, both, of Russian Jews;
Each invents a clever vaccine.
Leave a problem. Which to choose?

Salk's injected, Sabin's oral;
Salk's 'killed' virus, Sabin's live.
Sabin sees he has a moral
Task to see Salk's doesn't thrive.

The virus grows in your intestine.
Sabin's vaccine hits the spot;
Halts the viruses' clandestine
Multiplying. Saves a shot.

Jo and Albert, both amazing
Pioneers of public health;
Persevering, trail-blazing,
Ruling germs that kill by stealth.

I lined up in 1959 at school to get my little dose of red coloured liquid Sabin vaccine.
I remember seeing children at school in those days with calipers on their legs from the effects of polio.

Interestingly, Neville, it's recently become an injectable vaccine - six diseases with one needles, which is not a bad effort!