Albert B. Sabin, MD

Dr. Sabin and Child in Pavia, Italy, 1967.

Dr. Sabin and Child in Pavia, Italy, 1967.
We have a common interest in the elimination of disease that is a cause of human misery everywhere in the world. This common interest unites us in a desire for cooperation regardless of what else may separate us.
— Dr. Sabin, in his acceptance speech for the Rotary Award for World Understanding in 1985.

Best known as the developer of the oral, live virus polio vaccine, Dr. Albert Bruce Sabin influenced many aspects of vaccine development and virology throughout his career. Born in 1906 in Bialystok, Russia, Albert Sabin and his family came to the United States in 1921 to escape Jewish persecution. He would have become a dentist if his uncle had his way, but when Dr. Sabin read The Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in biomedical research.

I was then given an after-school job at Harlem Hospital for which I received room and board at the hospital. Pneumonia was the big killer in 1927, and the only treatment was type-specific antipneumococcus serum. My job at the hospital was to inject mice with the sputum of the many patients who were admitted each day, and the following evening to determine the type of infecting pneumococcus. By that time, however, many of the patients were already dead. This was my first challenge as a ‘microbe hunter.’ — Dr. Sabin, in an essay ca. 1992

Dr. Sabin describes his first challenge as a microbe hunter in an essay ca. 1992.

I was then given an after-school job at Harlem Hospital for which I received room and board at the hospital. Pneumonia was the big killer in 1927, and the only treatment was type-specific antipneumococcus serum. My job at the hospital was to inject mice with the sputum of the many patients who were admitted each day, and the following evening to determine the type of infecting pneumococcus. By that time, however, many of the patients were already dead. This was my first challenge as a ‘microbe hunter.’ — Dr. Sabin, in an essay ca. 1992

After receiving his medical degree from New York University in 1931, he worked in several research laboratories, including the Department of Bacteriology at New York University and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, where his interest in poliomyelitis began.

The 1970 National Medal of Science presented to Dr. Sabin on May 21,1971 by the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. Image Courtesy of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

The 1970 National Medal of Science presented to Dr. Sabin on May 21,1971 by the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon
…for numerous fundamental contributions to the understanding of viruses and viral diseases, culminating in the development of the vaccine which has eliminated poliomyelitis as a major threat to human health.
Image Courtesy of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum

In 1939, he came to the University of Cincinnati and the Children's Hospital Research Foundation, where he continued his passionate research in polio. However, Dr. Sabin took a brief break from polio during World War II to study Japanese B Encephalitis, sandfly and dengue fever while serving his country in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Dr. Sabin also conducted research on toxoplasmosis, arthritis, and cancer during his 30 years in Cincinnati.

Years of research led to the development and production of the oral poliovirus vaccine, which was approved for use in the United States in 1960. By using Sabin's attenuated polio vaccine, as well as the inactivated poliovirus vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, polio was effectively eradicated in the United States in 1979.

Dr. Sabin believed that his vaccine could eliminate polio around the world due to its low cost and ease of administration. For the rest of his career, he spent much time advocating for National Immunization Days to distribute the oral vaccine.

In an unprecedented humanitarian gesture, he donated the strains of the polio virus to World Health Organization to increase their availability to developing countries.

After leaving the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Sabin was the President of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, and a consultant with National Cancer Institute and Fogarty International Center for the Advanced Studies in the Health Sciences at the National Institutes of Health. Throughout these transitions, Dr. Sabin continued to be a proponent for polio eradication initiatives and the use of the oral polio vaccine.

Dr. Sabin retired from full-time work in 1986, but continued to correspond with scientists about research until his death in 1993.

Dr. Sabin in His Own Words

Watch a video clip from the full University of Cincinnati Oral Series interview of Dr. Sabin with Dr. Benjamin Felson and Dr. Saul Benison, March 8, 1979. The full interview video is available for viewing in the Sabin Archives Digital Collection.

As a humanitarian I'm deeply concerned. If we once grant that we do not live for ourselves alone and that perhaps the greatest joy that can come in the life of a human being comes from achievements that are related to doing something for others, then the concern for problems facing mankind in general in this world is perhaps of the utmost importance.
— Dr. Sabin, in The Scientific Life by Theodore Berland

Explore the Digital Collection

Brigadier General J. Johnson presenting the Legion of Merit to Dr. Sabin.

From 1943 to 1945, Dr. Sabin served on active duty with the Army Medical Corps, promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. During his military service, he investigated diseases such as dengue, sandfly fever, Japanese B and St. Louis encephalitis, and other neurotropic viral infections—most significant being his development of vaccines for both St. Louis and Japanese B encephalitis. He also served as a civilian consultant with the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board from 1941-43 and from 1946-69.

His Military Service (including his Dengue and Japanese B Encephalitis Vaccines)

“World Understanding, World Peace and Polio” —Dr. Sabin's speech when receiving the Rotary Award for World Understanding in 1985.

Throughout his career, Dr. Sabin served on many advisory committees on medical research, including those of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Armed Forces, World Health Organization, and Pan American Health Organization.
One of the notable parts of this collection is the correspondence from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now the March of Dimes), which funded much of Dr. Sabin's poliomyelitis research.

His Professional Affiliations and Memberships

Poliomyelitis was one of the most feared diseases of the 20th century. Dr. Sabin's work on human poliomyelitis and the complex properties of the polio viruses had the greatest practical impact. Later in life, he continued to have a significant impact on the international scientific community in his capacity as medical statesman, consultant, and lecturer. His contributions included a more global perspective of humanitarianism. He emphasized mutual trust and international cooperation which led to the virtual eradication of polio around the world.

His Oral Poliovirus Vaccine

Learn More

The entire collection (of which 50,000 pages have been digitized) is available for further research at the Henry R. Winkler Center. For more information, please contact us by email at chhp@uc.edu or phone at (513) 558-5120. To discover the full range of material available in the archives collection, please go to the OhioLINK Finding Aid Repository.

Digital Archives Material of Interest:

Links of Interest:

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI LIBRARIES BLOG The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: The Microbe Hunter

The first assignment I handled when I started at the Sabin Archive nearly a month ago was to inventory a recent acquisition. Mrs. Sabin and her son sent us another large shipment of documents, photographs, awards, videos, and almost everything else imaginable. Sifting through these items served as my introduction to Albert B. Sabin's life and legacy. This donation offered insight mainly into his later years and his posthumous honors with nearly all the items dating from 1970 forward. I learned many interesting things as I sorted through hundreds of fascinating items and I will share some of the most memorable items on this blog. First, I want to highlight an essay Dr. Sabin wrote in 1992 as an introduction to Paul de Kruif's “Microbe Hunters” which influenced his life greatly.

Written ca. 1992, Dr. Sabin's essay offers an autobiographical glimpse into his formative years. He mentioned many times that “Microbe Hunters” affected his career path. This essay describes its influence and, of even greater interest, his first forays into scientific experimentation.
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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI LIBRARIES BLOG The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Dr. Sabin's Military Service

The Hauck Center for the Albert B. Sabin Archives contains 14.5 linear feet (29 boxes) dedicated to Dr. Sabin's work as a civilian consultant with the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board from 1941 to 1943 and again from 1946 to 1969.

From 1943 to 45, Dr. Sabin served on active duty with the Medical Corps, first as a Major and later as Lieutenant Colonel. He researched such diseases as dengue, sandfly fever, Japanese B and St. Louis encephalitis, and other neurotropic viral infections as part of the military's effort to reduce non combat-injury related illnesses and deaths. He helped to develop the St. Louis and Japanese B encephalitis and dengue vaccines. His service, both as a civilian and while on active duty, took him to many places across the world and allowed him to interact with many great scientific minds.
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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI LIBRARIES BLOG The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Example of Compassion and How It Influenced a Life

Successful people are often described as being driven, strong-willed, or zealous. Though to be definitively admirable, a person should also be compassionate, forgiving, and considerate. Dr. Albert Sabin managed to find a steady balance between these two domains, stern yet soft. In speaking with Dr. Kenneth Blackman, a former assistant to Dr. Sabin, we gain some insight on the level of professionalism and empathy shown by Dr. Sabin.

As the story goes, Dr. Blackman, then a young man with an opportunity to work in Dr. Sabin's lab, was busy working on a project related to a potential human tumor virus. Dr. Blackman's duties were to properly identify and collect concentrates in fluid from tissue culture infected with this particular virus. Despite the relatively cramped working space (Old Children's Research Building R), Dr. Blackman was able to complete this rather standard collection with nary an incident for weeks. On a particular day though, a Friday, things took a heartbreaking turn for the worse. Dr. Blackman, completing the daily collection of concentrates from tissue culture, was steadily handling a bottle containing a few weeks' worth of sample liquid. Bottle in hand, as he was turning towards away from the tissue culture station, the bottom of the bottle clipped the edge of the work bench causing the contents to fall out.
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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI LIBRARIES BLOG The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Essays on Sabin

We are currently in the process of redesigning the current Sabin website, which is very exciting! For this new website, I have been doing some research to create new content and update content already there. Through my search, I came across some essays about Dr. Sabin written by Dr. Allen B. Weisse, a cardiologist and medical historian.

In 1987, Dr. Weisse contacted Dr. Sabin about one of the essays that appeared in a book called Medical Odysseys: The Different and Sometimes Unexpected Pathways to Twentieth-Century Medical Discoveries. (The Sabin Archives has a folder of correspondence between Dr. Sabin and Dr. Weisse that discusses this chapter.[1]) They met later in 1987, when Dr. Weisse conducted an interview for this chapter.

This interview, along with several others, led Dr. Weisse to tackle the poliomyelitis discussion in his chapter “Polio: The Not-So-Twentieth-Century Disease.” This chapter both Dr. Sabin's and Dr. Jonas Salk's accomplishments and gave some background into poliomyleitis. Early in the chapter, Weisse wrote, “Although a brief summary such as this must, of necessity, omit mention of a number of individuals whose contributions were of great value, no reference to polio could possibly be made without the inclusion of Dr. Albert B. Sabin's remarkable accomplishments.”
read more…

Sabin Sundays and
His Oral Polio Vaccine

Families lined up to receive Dr. Sabin's oral polio vaccine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital on “Sabin Sunday”, April 24, 1960.

“Mrs Sabin, First of all, thank you. I wish you knew all the prayers of thanks that my mother said for Dr. Sabin's vaccine.She had four of us at the period of time that polio was ravaging the U.S. I was maybe 7 or 8 at the time and my memories were very frightening. Mama would boil all of our water, absolutely NO swimming pools, and she was very afraid of sending us to school. I remember seeing pictures on the news of rows and rows of the iron lung and was terrified. I rememeber seeing the eyes of the children just lying there and feeling so sad and terrified at the same time. So once again, thank you. God bless Dr. Sabin.” —A memory shared at a Sabin Sunday anniversary event

Families lined up to receive Dr. Sabin's oral polio vaccine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital on “Sabin Sunday”, April 24, 1960.
Image Courtesy of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
To me, the most important aspect of this is to indicate what can be done in an American city under a voluntary system of participation in an attempt to get rid of poliomyelitis…
— Dr. Sabin, in a letter to Dr. Tom Rivers, April
25, 1960

On Sunday, April 24, 1960, more than 20,000 children in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the surrounding area received the Sabin oral, live-virus polio vaccine in its first public distribution in the United States. Within two weeks, over 180,000 of the region's children ages 3 months to 6 years received the vaccine. Later known as "Sabin Oral Sunday," national campaigns throughout the United States and in many countries around the world, encouraged people to line to receive the oral vaccine in a few drops of syrup or on a sugar cube.

My internship at Bellevue Hospital did not begin until January, 1932qaand I continued to work in the laboratories of the Department of Bacteriology. At the Medical School on experimental pneumoccus infection in mice and rabbits in an attempt to gain more knowledge about the mechanism of death in the absence of bacteria. But, the biggest polio epidemic since 1916 broke out in July in New York City paralyzing more than 6,000 children, and killing many of them. My mentor, Dr. William H. Park, induced me to switch from pneumonia to polio. — Dr. Sabin, in an essay ca. 1992

Dr. Sabin describes the impetus of his switch to studying polio.

“My internship at Bellevue Hospital did not begin until January, 1932qaand I continued to work in the laboratories of the Department of Bacteriology. At the Medical School on experimental pneumoccus infection in mice and rabbits in an attempt to gain more knowledge about the mechanism of death in the absence of bacteria. But, the biggest polio epidemic since 1916 broke out in July in New York City paralyzing more than 6,000 children, and killing many of them. My mentor, Dr. William H. Park, induced me to switch from pneumonia to polio.” —Dr. Sabin, in an essay ca. 1992

Today this oral vaccine has helped to virtually eradicate polio from the globe. Dr. Sabin's interest in polio began early in his career. While at UC, Dr. Sabin and his colleagues had several breakthroughs that paved the way for the polio vaccine.

Dr. Sabin administers his oral poliovirus vaccine to two children in Cincinnati, 1960.

This 1963 poster featured CDC's national symbol of public health, the “Wellbee”, who was depicted here encouraging the public to receive an oral polio vaccine. CDC used the Wellbee in its comprehensive marketing campaign that used newspapers, posters, leaflets, radio and television, as well as personal appearances at public health events. Wellbee's first assignment was to sponsor Sabin TypeII oral polio vaccine campaigns across the United States. Later, Wellbee's character was incorporated into other health promotion campaigns including diphtheria and tetanus immunizations, hand-washing, physical fitness, and injury prevention. This artifact can be found in the Global Health Odyssey, which is the CDC's museum featuring many various public health-related artifacts. This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #7224

(left) Dr. Sabin administers his oral polio vaccine in sweet cherry syrup. (right) This 1963 poster featured CDC's national symbol of public health, the “Wellbee”, encouraging the public to receive an oral polio vaccine. (This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #7224)

One major breakthrough for Dr. Sabin and his colleague Dr. Robert Ward was the discovery that the virus entered through the digestive system rather than the respiratory tract. This knowledge led Sabin to pursue an oral vaccine. While a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine and the Children's Hospital Research Foundation, Dr. Sabin developed the vaccine that was later known as the “Sabin oral vaccine.”

The Sabin vaccine, which consists of three types of “attenuated” or weakened polioviruses, is taken by mouth and provides immunity to not only those who are vaccinated but also those who come in contact with the vaccinated. It requires no periodic booster and produces lifelong immunity.

Dr. Sabin began testing on humans in 1954 with volunteers at a correctional facility in Chillicothe, Ohio, with success, but not before giving the vaccine to his own family.

In 1956, after months of study and consultation about polio and both vaccines, the medical establishment in the Soviet Union decided to use Sabin's oral vaccine in a mass immunization program. Other countries, such as Mexico and Czechoslovakia, also participated in large field trials.

In the United States, children participating in the first “Sabin Sunday” in Cincinnati and Hamilton County led to the declaration that the area was the first “poliofree” area in the United States. The success of Dr. Sabin's studies, vaccine trials and programs eventually assisted efforts in the US to switch from an inactivated vaccine to a live, attenuated one. Subsequently, it became the vaccine of choice for many countries and has helped to effectively wiped out polio's existence.

Two of the 100,000 letters sent to Dr. Sabin during a hospital stay in 1983.

Two of the 100,000 letters sent to Dr. Sabin during a hospital stay in 1983.
To read those letters, I can't even tell you the feeling it gives me. It makes me feel that what I did was somehow worthwhile. You always have a feeling of doubting whether what you have done with your life is truly worthwhile. …People forget. But these letters …as long as I live, these letters will give me a feeling of warmth.
— Dr. Sabin to Bob Greene

In my estimation no man has ever contributed so much effective information – so continuously over so many years – to so many aspects of poliomyelitis, as Sabin.
— John R. Paul, MD, renowned epidemiologist, A History of Poliomyelitis