History of Vaccination and Infectious Diseases
Much can be learnt from the study of histrical events leading up to the discovery of pathogens and development of vaccines and therapies. Many scientists were courageous, both in placing their own lives at risk to demonstrate many of the principles we now take for granted, and in exposing themselves and their families to public scorn and professional enmity. Below are a number of links to pages outlining personalities and events accompanying the acceptance of infectious diseases being caused by microbes and the development of vaccines. These parallel my own research interests in particular diseases and vaccines. Click on the title of each heading below to be redirected to more extensive content and information.
A farmer in Dorset at the end of the 18th Century, he noticed that those exposed to cowpox seemed to not succomb to the rages of smallpox. His inoculation of his wife using a darning needle impregnated with fluid from a cow pustule led Jesty in being widely condemned as placing his family at unnecssary risk.
A country physician, Edward Jenner was the pioneer of smallpox vaccination. He discovered that small quantities of cowpox virus scratched onto the arm protected against subsequent exposure to virulent smallpox. Although some authrorities contend that he built upon the work of others before him, his seminal contribution was the deliberate challenge of a young boy who had previously been vaccinated with pus from a smallpox case did not result in disease.
Anti-Vaccination Movement in the 19th Century
The Jennerian approach to preventing smallpox was not widely accepted in Victorian Britain: Government legislationto enforce vaccination provoked widespread civil unrest and ran counter to the rising belief amonst the Victorians that sanitation and cleanliness were all that was nevessary to contain the disease, reinforced by the dramatic decline in cholera as hygiene measured improved in cities and towns. The over-interpretation of Jenner's findings coupled with a lack of rigour in use of cowpox compounded the social accpetance of smallpox vaccination, often behind other countries such as China and Korea where its introduction became commonplace from the late 1800's onwards.
A signatory to the American Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush was a leading political figure in Philadephia in the latter half of the 18th Century. His graphic descriptions of yellow fever oubreaks and his attempts at treatment vividly ilustrate how infectious disease impacted upon the daily lives of those struggling for nationhood.
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