The Progression Of Vaccination

The history of vaccinations begin with Edward Jenner, the country doctor from Gloucestershire who found, growing on cows, a nearly harmless virus the protected people from smallpox. Jenner’s vaccine was safer, more reliable, and more durable than variolation, and it is still the only vaccine to have eliminated its reason for being-in 1980, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the disease extinct. For nearly a century and a half, smallpox was the only vaccine routinely administered, and it saved millions of lives . But the controversy that marked the return of the vaccine, amid bioterrorism hysteria in 2002, was only the latest twist in the remarkable, mysterious life of vaccines.

Throughout history, vaccinations have been used to help the prevention of infectious diseases; some of which can produce serious illnesses, crippling disabilities, and ultimately be the cause of death. There is evidence of ancient culture’s attempting to treat transmittable diseases with various forms of inoculations. Developments in the research of vaccinations increased during the mid-twentieth century because of the established of more advanced laboratories, improved equipment, and new innovations. The progression of medicine during history has helped further the development of research into vaccinations. Several cultural, ethical, and religious issues have resulted from the development and use of vaccinations in our society. The topic of vaccinations has caused a strong debate amongst our culture about the safety and danger of treating infectious diseases with such methods.

Vaccinations have been actively used for over 200 years now and have been effective for over 200 years as well. Western medicine’s introduction to the practice is said to have occurred within the eighteenth century, when a traveling British aristocrat, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, reported her observations of Turkish children being injected with pus from smallpox victims. Although this practice seemed quite harsh, most of these children would contract only a mild version of the illness. In return, these recipients would retain a lifelong immunity to this terrible disease (World of Microbiology & Immunology). Similarly, in the United States, a Puritan minister by the name of Cotton Mather learned about inoculation from his African slave, Onesimus. Onesimus claimed that he was inoculated with smallpox pus and never caught the tragic disease (Williams). This type of medicinal treatment was initially rejected by most Western practitioners. They felt it was a dangerous and barbarous practice, but vaccination gained a tremendous amount of support at the turn of the nineteenth century when English physician Edward Jenner created a new smallpox vaccine derived from the relatively mild cowpox virus (Riedel). There’s no doubt that history has shown the positive outcomes of immunization and continued to show them as technology and medicine progressed.

Growing up we are always told, “Make sure you get your flu shot!” That leads to the question of where did vaccines come from? As a society we have benefited from vaccines for over two centuries. However, the road to proper vaccines hasn’t been an easy one. In 1796 Edward Jenner, a doctor located in England, performed the first vaccination. The need for this vaccine was because milkmaids from around the country were becoming infected with cowpox. Based on his findings from this vaccine and several others, Jenner published a book that would later become a classic in the art of medicine. This book was, Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccine. According to authors Alexandra Minna Stern and Howard Markel, this text laid the foundation for modern vaccinology (Stern & Markel,

Edward Jenner and the Discovery of Vaccines Edward Jenner (1749-1823) trained in London, under John Hunter, and was an army surgeon for a period of time. After that, he spent his whole career as a country doctor in his home county, Gloucestershire (West of England). His research was based on careful case studies and clinical observation more than a hundred years before scientists could explain what viruses and diseases actually were. His innovative new method was successful to such an extent that by 1840 the British government had banned alternative preventive treatments against smallpox. [IMAGE]

As Ezekiel Emanuel, an American oncologist said, “Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child’s death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections.” For millions of years diseases have plagued entire populations, and in the late 1700s, Edward Jenner invented the smallpox vaccination which brought about a new era of disease prevention. Vaccinations should be enforced because they save lives, rarely cause reactions, and have eliminated diseases.

Vaccines have been used to prevent diseases for centuries, and have saved countless lives of children and adults. The smallpox vaccine was invented as early as 1796, and since then the use of vaccines has continued to protect us from countless life threatening diseases such as polio, measles, and pertussis. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) assures that vaccines are extensively tested by scientist to make sure they are effective and safe, and must receive the approval of the Food and Drug Administration before being used. “Perhaps the greatest success story in public health is the reduction of infectious diseases due to the use of vaccines” (CDC, 2010). Routine immunization has eliminated smallpox from the globe and

However, Jenner’s invention became a common practice only a few years after he released it to the public, and according to The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia, “By 1890 smallpox had virtually been eradicated from Britain.” (“Jenner, Edward (1749-1823)”) From the information about the first vaccination, we can see that vaccinations have been proven to eliminate deadly diseases, whether they receive opposition or not. Without immunizations, we would be overcome with diseases, such as smallpox, polio, and measles.

Mandatory vaccination continues to be a contentious subject in the United States, even though extensive evidence proves inoculation prevents certain diseases. According to A. Plotkin & L. Plotkin (2011), the evolution of the first vaccine commenced in the 1700’s when a physician named Edwards Jenner discovered that cowpox protected individuals from one of the deadliest diseases termed smallpox. The precise virus Jenner used is unclear; however, it was espoused in the extermination of smallpox worldwide. The researchers further explained, the unearthing of the subsequent vaccine known as chicken cholera occurred approximately 80 years later by Louise Pasteur. Ever since, copious vaccines such as rabies, yellow fever, varicella, pneumococcal, mumps and recently HPV have been introduced.

Jenner’s vaccine was so successful that the World Health Organization declared the word “entirely eradicated” of human smallpox on December 9, 1979 (Spier, 2015). As a consequence of this monumental success and other successes like it, people forget how deadly diseases like this can be and fail to attribute their lack of a crippling disease to vaccinations. Other diseases that have been considered eliminated in a similar manner to smallpox are: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis A & B, yellow fever (Spier, 2015).

Throughout history, smallpox has been one of the dreaded scourges that inflicted mankind. World Health Organization (WHO) stated that smallpox is responsible for the 300 million death cases worldwide in the twentieth century. (Fenner, Henderson, Arita, Jezek , & Ladnyi, 1988) (Plotkin, 2004) It was only after Dr Edward Jenner’s development on the principle of vaccination that provided the only accurate technique for the prevention of smallpox. The introduction of vaccinia vaccine enabled the global eradication of naturally occurring smallpox in 1970, it is recorded that the last known smallpox case recorded was in Somalia after the eradication. (Rappuoli, Miller, & Falkow, 2002) Jenner’s procedure has been a highly effective immunizing agent, however, it seemed that it isn’t a successful fighter to disease because it carries high incidence of adverse side effects and severe complications. (Madigan, Martinko, Stahl , & Clark, 2012)This

Until the development of the smallpox vaccine in 1796, inoculation using the live smallpox virus was the only way to protect people from the deadly disease. Those inoculated had a chance of contracting the full virus and potentially dying from the disease. When Edward Jenner discovered that he could use a similar disease found in cattle, he began the modern era of vaccination (The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 2015). Over the next 200 years, smallpox was essentially driven extinct by vaccination programs. Due to vaccines, a disease that killed an estimated 300 million people in the 20th century alone now only exists in a Center for Disease Control laboratory. (Flight, 2011).

When the Smallpox disease made an overpopulated England its territory, it thrived and wiped out thousands of people (“Smallpox Vaccine: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”). Smallpox was a major threat to many countries and civilizations for thousands of years; however, the permanent cure for the disease began in England. During the eighteenth century, a physician by the name of Edward Jenner was credited with the invention of the most important piece of medical technology, the vaccine, and became known as the “Father of Immunology”. Although Edward Jenner encountered errors in his research, and people questioned the ethics of the vaccine trials, he used his knowledge, determination, and medical experience to explore a more efficient and advanced

The concept of vaccines, basically exposure to a disease to trick the body into forming immunity, has been controversial from its beginnings. The history of vaccines began in 1796 with Edward Jenner, a doctor from England, who performed the first immunization (Alexandra, Markel, 2005). Edward Jenner showed that a certain level of immunity could be accomplished by dosing patients with cowpox, which is a close relative of smallpox (Alexandra, Markel, 2005). He then tried, without success, to infect that same

The major inventions and discoveries made between the 1800’s and present day have been added and improved upon, especially from the 1950s to today, making life easier and giving us opportunities to do more and discover more. Edward Jenner developed the first successful vaccine in 1796 to help prevent smallpox. Since then, more vaccines for major illnesses have been concocted, helping save millions of lives. According to the chart modified by the National Centers for Disease Control in Text 05 “Vaccines and Disease” in Investigation 9, the number of cases of smallpox, polio, measles, and mumps have decreased intensely and some have been completely wiped from human existence as of 2010. Still, the World Health Organization says that up to 1.5 million children, without these beneficial vaccines and modern medicine, die each year.