Herald Rea Cox was born and raised in Terre Haute, Indiana. He attended the Indiana State Normal School, and he graduated in 1928 with degrees in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Cox then went on to obtain his doctorate degree from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was mostly interested in bacteriology. In the 1930s, he joined the U.S. Public Health Service as the principal bacteriologist studying Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Cox studied rickettsia, the group of organisms that causes this disease. Cox discovered that these organisms could be grown in fertile egg membranes, which led to the development of the vaccines for these diseases.
Besides helping to discover the vaccines for these diseases, Cox was successful in helping to produce the vaccine for polio. In 1952, he was able to grow a strain of the polio virus in hen's eggs, which led to a successful oral vaccine in 1961. Although, he was a contributor, the official polio vaccine is credited to Jonas Salk. Also, the family Coxiellaceae and the genus Coxiella, which contain the organism that causes Q fever, are named after Cox. Cox also was a prominent figure in cancer research. So, we have Herald Cox to thank for many of the reasons we are able to have longer and healthier lives today. This is the reason Cox is considered one of Terre Haute's local legends today.
I was part of the testing program for the Cox Oral Polio Vaccine. At the time (early 1960's) I was living in Suffern, NY, where my father, Dr. William L. Ransom, was principal of the Suffern High School. It was through "connections" that My father asked me if I would participate in the vaccine testing program and I said "yes!" The testing went on for several years. Each summer Dr. Cox would invite all the participants and their families to a terrific barbecue at his estate, which was near Tuxedo, NY, just up Route 17 from Suffern. Part of the day trip was having blood drawn and receiving a dose of the vaccine, which didn't taste like much. If I remember correctly, my last "contribution" was in summer of 1965. For my high school graduation in 1965 Dr. Cox gave me a lovely gold Cross pen, which I had for decades, but which went astray with most of my personal possessions about 10 years ago.
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