Preface

As the twentieth century draws to a close, mdical care has emerged as a criticial issue for nations everywhere.

The Past Is the Ground on Which We Walk

I will never forget the sight of one particular ward in the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1955, when a polio epidemic, the last before the Salk vaccine came into use, spread through metropolitan boston.

Chapter One

The Search for a Cure

The twentieth century was less than two decades away, and the President of the United States was James A. Garfield, a deft Republican politician who might have made a good chief executive.