Vaccinated Smallpox

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.

Infectious epidemics and pandemics have happened all through mankind's history. “They remain the prime cause of death worldwide and will not be conquered during our lifetimes.” The flu of 1918 was one of the deadliest epidemics in history. “It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic.” No one knew how the virus spread, there were no antibiotics to fight it, and no flu shots to prevent it. In the final year of World War I, it struck terror in the hearts of people all across Europe and left more death in its wake than the combined military actions of the combatants. “It killed more Americans in a few months than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the

In late 2013, Ebola virus disease (EVD), a deadly and lethal disease, remerged in West Africa spreading to various countries in the region. In humans, the disease is spread through contact with infected bodily fluids leading to haemorrhagic fever (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015). Originating in 1976 in equatorial Africa, past outbreaks with a few hundred cases had been contained within rural, forested areas in Uganda and Congo (Piot, 2012). In 2014, a total of 20, 206 cases and 7,905 deaths were reported to have occurred in up to eight countries worldwide. Of all cases and deaths resulting from the disease, 99.8% occurred in three neighbouring West African countries - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea (WHO, 2014). With a case fatality rate from about 50% to 90%, and the absence of preventative or curative therapies, the Ebola epidemic has led to overall global alarm and further elucidated existing global health disparities that perpetuated the epidemic with these West African countries.

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

With the numerous health risks coupled with the need for extremely regulated quarantine, what, exactly, forced Rhode Island’s hand into legalizing the smallpox inoculation procedure? Rhode Island’s general assembly wrote that “There is great danger that the inhabitants of the United Colonies may, by the prevalence of that distemper, be rendered incapable of defense at a time when their safety may depend upon their most vigorous exertions.” The smallpox disease, combined with the risk of an epidemic posed such a threat to the American rebel forces that colony’s official legislative bodies deemed it necessary to intervene. And this was at a time when the founding fathers of the United States believed that any form of government should play virtually

Unlike HIV or other global viruses, Ebola is until this day geographically restrained, facilitating the deduction that the responsible originated from West Africa or returned from areas confirmed as danger zones. The list of suspects is indeed rather short: it amounts to Western Africans travelling to America and U.S. citizen contaminated in the same region. The latter category is, as cases in the western world indicate, consisted virtually exclusively of humanitarian helpers and health personal having been in contact with Ebola patients. Albeit these categories are subject to broad generalizations, they are the fruit of the apparent human condition to investigate, regardless of the rationality behind the reasoning. Seale baptised these generalisations “health imagined communities” (Seale, 2007, p. 92). Lupton emphasized on the experience that constructed risk communities don’t differ from real risk communities as much in their consequences as they do in their

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).

Despite smallpox’s long history of harm, killing nearly 300 million people in the twentieth century alone, it is now considered eradicated thanks to a vaccine and vaccination program lead by the World Health Organization. Because of its eradication,

Armed with opposable thumbs and high-functioning frontal lobes, humans have historically battled disease, including the “the speckled monster”; smallpox. Known as a highly contagious virus, smallpox has been around since 10,000 B.C., and its plagues are responsible for causing millions of deaths. There was no knowledge of how to treat or prevent this disease from spreading until the idea of taking samples of dead smallpox cells and injecting them into a human was proven to build immunity. Over time, the treatment was perfected and has changed medical history by introducing the idea of the vaccine. Smallpox vaccinations eventually became mandated, and in 1979, smallpox was declared to be the first disease to ever be completely eradicated from

Throughout history, infectious diseases have impacted communities around the world. Outbreaks of bacteria and viruses in the past have damaged cities and devastated populations. Over the years, new developments in technology have led to advances in medicine and health. The great strides that have been made over the years have helped improve the lives of individuals and have led to a better environment.

Diseases can be preventable and curable but many still manage to devastate on international scales, whether it was during the Middle Ages or today. These illnesses are sometimes underrated in their effects on the human race where symptoms can range from minimal to down-right devastating and painful. No matter where it started, they can bring devastating effects to the surrounding area. When someone wants to know about a disease, they want to know where it came from, it's symptoms, and how it affected the community in which it appeared. The Black Death, Ebola, and the Zika virus are examples of large-scale illnesses that vary in all three of these topics but still managed to threaten humans on a bigger scale than expected. Diseases like the

Imagine a quick spreading rash throughout the entire body, leaving not a single space behind; every opening and crevice in your body, including your mouth and eyes covered in painful bumps accompanied by high fever and severe body aches. Flat red spots transforming into fluid-filled lesions and soon oozing out yellow pus, evidently emitting a pungent odor to anyone who dared get close. The live virus present in the darkening crusty scabs that would soon fall off only to leave behind a deep pitted scarred filled complexion on anyone who was fortunate enough to survive. These scars would be forever remembered as the hallmark for the smallpox epidemic which tormented the world for over 3,000 years. (Riedel “Deadly Diseases”).

The plague was the most devastating pandemic in human history, killing around 80-200 million people mostly throughout Europe, leaving most people back then wondering how they and others got sick and died. “Evidence available from rural continental Europe suggests a slow spread of human mortality across trade and travel routes, patterns consistent” (Carmichael 3), until after multiple inventions such as printing, word spread of this murderer, preventing more deaths and to treat those affected. This disease is known throughout the world as the Black Death and still lingers to this day, corrupting individuals in areas of poverty who can’t find shelter from this relentless killer. Even with government surveillance and modern technology and medicine, to this day we can’t 100% cure those affected by the plague, but modern antibiotics make this disease less deadly.

Measles. Polio. Smallpox. The flu. Imagine the world when vaccines were yet to be created. There was a time when people lived in fear of dreadful diseases. Thanks to the introduction of vaccines, many of those devastating diseases have been nearly or completely wiped out. Despite these results, for some people, the question remains: should we vaccinate? Today, I will be discussing the development of the first vaccine, global benefits, and the anti-vaccine movement.

When reflecting on the history of the human species, it is said that the narrative of mankind and infectious diseases are intertwined. For centuries, humans have been exposed to a seemingly infinite amount of contagions. Many viruses, bacteria, and fungi have plagued human beings for ages and have eradicated populations thousands at a time. Through medical innovations and the advancement of scientific knowledge, humans have been able to combat disease and disease-carrying vectors. Through proper hygiene, antibiotics and vaccinations humans have been able to control and eliminate many viruses and bacteria. It would seem that with the growing amount of medical knowledge, that infections would be less common, but this is not the case.