History of Medicine: Part 8: Vaccinations
Edward Jenner- 1796
Smallpox had been a disease for decațdes. It had killed Egyptians, Romans and native Americans after Columbus. It killed 1/3 who got it.
Variulation: from Ottoman Empire- puss from an infected individual dried and rubbed into a patient. Killed them 2% of the time. Only the rich could get it done.
One of these was a man named Edward Jenner who had been variulated as a kid.
In Gloucestershire which is dairy country. Make cheese and chase cheese.
Noting the common observation that milkmaids were generally immune to smallpox, Jenner postulated that the pus in the blisters that milkmaids received from cowpox (a disease similar to smallpox, but much less virulent) protected them from smallpox.
On 14 May 1796, Jenner tested his hypothesis by inoculating James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy who was the son of Jenner's gardener. He scraped pus from cowpox blisters on the hands of Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid who had caught cowpox from a cow called Blossom, whose hide now hangs on the wall of the St. George's Medical School library in London.
Jenner inoculated Phipps in both arms that day, subsequently producing in Phipps a fever and some uneasiness, but no full-blown infection. Later, he injected Phipps with variolous material, the routine method of immunization at that time. No disease followed. The boy was later challenged with variolous material and again showed no sign of infection.
Jenner created the term "vaccination" which in latin means, "from the cow."
Jenner gave the vaccines for free and never tried profit from it. However, the British government awarded him 30,000 for his work.
A lot of people didn't trust the process. Some believed it caused more harm than good, some people thought it interfered with God's plan and also tainted the human form with animal matter.
Later in the test boy Phipps's life, Jenner gave him, his wife, and his two children a free lease on a cottage in Berkeley, which went on to house the Edward Jenner Museum between 1968 and 1982. Phipps attended Jenner's funeral on 3 February 1823.
In 1853 Phipps was buried in St Mary's church in Berkeley, where he had been baptised. Jenner was also buried in this church.
"mankind can never forget that you have lived. Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome small-pox has existed and by you has been extirpated." To Jenner from Thomas Jefferson
Today the disease has been eradicated as of 1978. So far, two diseases have been successfully eradicated—one specifically affecting humans (smallpox), and one affecting cows. Some like to think of it as a thank you to cows.
He became the official doctor to the king and died shortly after.
The last victim of smallpox died in Birmingham, England when it escaped from a lab in 1975.
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