infecting a person with the smallpox virus, variola,
to induce immunity against further infection.
Some still died of this cure.
Meanwhile, it was commonly observed
milkmaids did not get smallpox,
and many people, such as Doctor Fewster,
claimed an infection of cowpox
prevented smallpox.
The Dorset farmer Benjamin Jesty
innoculated his wife and kids
from an infected cow
during the smallpox epidemic
in seventeen seventy-four,
and Edward Jenner might have known of Jesty.
But Jenner was the first to show
that cowpox could be exchanged
by transferring the pus from a cowpox blister
from human to human
and the first to prove
that vaccination worked—
the twenty-three persons
whom he innoculated with cowpox
were immune to smallpox.
Eradication
Jenner’s method was quickly adopted
throughout Europe
and the United States.
Yet in the early fifties
fifty million cases of smallpox
still occurred in the world each year.
In 1967, the World Health Organization
launched a plan
to eradicate it.
It was not easy;
each outbreak
had to be stopped from spreading.
The methods were identification
isolation,
and innoculation.
Over one hundred years
after Jenner introduced his method,
smallpox was eradicated
throughout the world.
Terms
The smallpox virus is called variola
so innoculation with smallpox
was called variolation.
Variola is derived from the Latin
varius meaning “spotted”
or varus meaning “pimple.”
The Latin for “cow” is vacca,
so Edward Jenner
coined the term vaccination,
which now refers to the method
of administering an antigen
to induce an immunity.
There was no treatment for smallpox. Up to 35% of people
contracting smallpox died of it. During the twentieth century,
smallpox killed between 300 and 500 million people, and most of
these were children.
Louis Pasteur artificially weakened rabies, anthrax, and
chicken cholera organisms to develop vaccines.
There was no treatment for smallpox. Up to 35% of people contracting smallpox died of it. During the twentieth century, smallpox killed between 300 and 500 million people, and most of these were children.
Louis Pasteur artificially weakened rabies, anthrax, and chicken cholera organisms to develop vaccines.
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