News reports of the race to find a vaccine in respect of the coronavirus put us in mind of one of the most memorable encounters in our newspaper life. It was probably in the early 1990s at a glittering reception at the Council on Foreign Relations. We were startled by the fact that a raft of famous figures — Secretary of State Kissinger, and probably a prime minister or two — were all at the far end of the room.

Yet all newspapermen there were at the other end of the room, with their backs to the glitterati. The scriveners were crowded around an unassuming figure in a corner. He wasn’t the honoree at the event. Yet the scribes were leaning forward like the fellow was a veritable E.F. Hutton. When we spotted Jim Sterba of the Wall Street Journal, we tapped him on the shoulder. “Sterbs,” we said, “who is this guy?”

“That,” said Mr. Sterba, holding out his arms in a gesture of presentment, “is Jonas Salk.” Salk was, of course, the American virologist, of immigrant stock, who rose from East Harlem to found the first vaccine to conquer polio. He didn’t conquer polio alone, but he emerged as the most famous figure of an epic campaign that ended with the total defeat of polio.

It’s too soon to say on whom destiny is going to fix the glory for conquering the coronavirus. A “global arms race” for a vaccine is underway, the Times reports. Clinical trials are being carried out not only in America but also Europe and China, where, the Times reckons, a thousand scientists are at work. On March 15, Israeli scientists were quoted as saying they’re but “weeks away” from a vaccine. A German company, too, is in the race.

Their speed is breathtaking — at least compared to the race against polio. The disease was known for several hundred years, according to “Polio, An American Story, ” which won the 2006 Pulitzer in history for its author, David Oshinsky. He calls his book “the story of the crusade that mobilized the nation against the 20th century’s most feared disease.” Yet even for the most brilliant minds, polio took half a century.

It’s not our purpose here to sketch the ups, downs, and ups of the polio story. It is, as captured by Mr. Oshinsky, plenty dramatic. Salk, whose killed-virus vaccine was given by injection, was the first to get a vaccine into a public trial. He came to be bitterly resented by some of his associates. And by his most famous competitor, Albert Sabin, who focused on an oral, live-virus vaccine. Our purpose is merely to marvel at the glory that befell these immortals.

That glory is something to think about as scientists around the world race for a vaccine against the coronavirus. When Salk was aboard an airliner, pilots would announce his presence and passengers would applaud. Hotels would upgrade him, diners would approach him in restaurants. Even 40 years later, when the greatest statesmen gathered for cocktails, the newspapermen would turn their backs and focus on the shy scientist who’d led the campaign to rid the planet of a microscopic foe.

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Image: Photo by SAS Scandinavian Airlines, via Wikipedia.