 But, unlike other viral infections, the incidence of polio – the rarer severe form of the infection – increased in the 20th century and reached a peak around 1952.The invention of a cell culture system for growing the virus enabled Jonas Salk (1914–1995) to make an effective polio vaccine.Denis Parsons Burkitt (1911–1993) was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ireland.