Vaccination

The sharpest way to provide PROTECTION against infection

Vaccination

vaccination exposes a person to a mild form of a disease, so that his or her body learns to fight the disease in the future.

This pin device was used in 18th-century Europe to move infected tissue from one person to another.

Variolation

In the 10th century, the Chinese began a simple form of vaccination called variolation. They exposed healthy people to the disease smallpox, in the hope that they would catch a milder version and, after recovery, become immune. A piece of a scab would be placed under the skin, or ground up and blown up a patient’s nose. The practice spread to Europe, but the method was unreliable and could lead to the spread of other diseases.

It paved the way for...

In 1853, French doctor Charles Pravaz invented the practical

metal hypodeRmic syRinge. Used to administer vaccines, it uses a hollow needle to pierce the skin. Dairy cows carried the cowpox virus on their udders.

Milkmaids often caught cowpox, a disease caused by a virus related to but much milder than deadly smallpox.

RobeRt Koch discovered the bacteria that cause anthRax (1876), tubeRculosis (1882), and choleRa (1883), allowing vaccines to be developed.

In the 18th century, smallpox was a major killer: Around 400,000 people died of the disease every year in Europe alone. In 1796, English doctor edward jenner infected an eight-year-old boy with a small amount of cowpox pus. Cowpox was similar to smallpox but much less dangerous. Success! The boy later proved to be immune to smallpox.

Edward Jenner realized that milkmaids who had caught cowpox were subsequently immune to smallpox.

By the way... I sometimes vaccinated as many as 200 people a day. I also came up with the word, vaccine from “vacca,” the Latin word for cow.

Swiss-born doctor

AlexAndre Yersin

created a vaccine against diphtheriA and in 1894 discovered the Yersinia pestis bacteria that caused bubonic plAgue.

Vaccination station

A century later, French chemist louis Pasteur made the next major breakthrough. In 1885, a young boy suffering from rabies arrived at his lab close to death. Pasteur had been experimenting with turning a weakened form of rabies into a vaccine, and gave the boy a series of injections. The boy regained full health, Pasteur went on to vaccinate thousands of people, and today many vaccines are still made using his methods.

Many were horrified at Jenner’s work, but vaccination caught on. In 1979, the World Health Organization declared that smallpox had finally been wiped out. Pasteur’s work led to research into other vaccines, and today we are protected against many once-common killers. How it changed the world

hiV is a devastating virus that breaks down the human body’s immune

system. MAssiVe reseArch is ongoing to discover a vaccine against HIV.