Jonas Salk developed the first successful polio vaccine and then refused to patent it, giving up what would have been billions of dollars in royalties. When Edward R. Murrow asked him who owned the patent, Salk replied, “The people. Could you patent the sun?” In an age of pharmaceutical fortunes, his decision remains one of the most extraordinary acts of scientific generosity in history.

This episode traces Salk from his childhood as the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants through the frantic race to conquer polio, the massive field trials that proved his vaccine worked, and the aftermath — including the bitter rivalry with Albert Sabin and the mixed legacy of a man the public loved but the scientific establishment never fully embraced.

• The terror of polio epidemics and the desperate public demand for a vaccine
• Salk’s controversial choice of a killed-virus vaccine over Sabin’s live-virus approach
• The largest medical field trial in history and the announcement that changed the world
• Why Salk refused to patent the vaccine and the billions he walked away from