When the first son was born on October 28, 1914, the Salks named him Jonas, a curious and rarely used spelling for the name of the minor prophet Jonah. The family, who lived in the Bronx, was poor. Jonas’ parents, both immigrants from czarist Russia, worked in the garment industry in New York City, and the choice of Jonas’ college was therefore narrowed to City College of New York, a tuition-free municipal institution in upper Manhattan. His original intention had been to prepare himself for a career in the law but exposure to the mysteries of biology led him to think, rather, of medicine.
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