The Origins of Vaccination

Hi all,

Today’s post is a bit of a departure from our regularly scheduled programming.

Recently, I've been listening to the audiobooks of Siddhartha Mukherjee, the author of "Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies" and "The Gene: An Intimate History." Both of these books have been engaging and informative, and I've been inspired to write a brief post about the history of vaccination. While I had learned this long ago, I had forgotten much of the history. It was nice to be able to read/write this with a fresh set of eyes.

The practice of vaccination has a long history dating back to 10th century China, where early forms of vaccination known as variolation were used to confer immunity against smallpox. Variolation involved exposing individuals to smallpox specimens taken from infected individuals. Smallpox was a devastating disease with a mortality rate of about 30%. Even if it didn't kill the person, it often left them with permanent scars across the face and body. If you want to see the extent of the damage caused by smallpox, I recommend searching for "smallpox" in Google Images. The disfigurement caused by the smallpox lesions is truly shocking.

The process of variolation, an early form of vaccination, involved using smallpox scabs or fluid from pustules to expose individuals to the causative virus. The scabs were powdered or the fluid was blown into the nose of the uninfected person, or applied to superficial scratches on their skin. This caused a localized infection that usually subsided within 2-4 weeks, but there was a small risk of death from the procedure. While variolation was not always safe, the odds of surviving it were much higher than those of surviving natural infection with smallpox.

The term "vaccination" refers to the administration of a vaccine to confer immunity against a specific disease or group of diseases. It was coined by Edward Jenner, an English physician who is considered the father of immunology. He is credited with developing the first vaccine, which was used to protect against smallpox, and his work is credited with saving millions of lives.

The word vaccination is derived from the Spanish word for cow, "vacca." Moooooo! :)

The origins of vaccination in England can be traced back to dairymaids who contracted cowpox, a mild viral infection that caused circular markings, or pockmarks, on the udders of cows. Dairymaids would also develop pockmarks on their hands from coming into contact with infected cows. But, importantly, once the dairymaids had the cowpox, they became immune to getting smallpox. This is because both cowpox (CPXV) and smallpox (VACV) are quite similar and belong to the same family of viruses, Orthopoxvirus.

By current bioethical standards, Edward Jenner's methods for conducting the first ever known vaccination in 1796 were somewhat controversial. He found a dairymaid named Sarah Nelmes and took a sample from her lesions and inoculated an 8 year old boy named James Phipps. The boy first developed a mild fever and a few benign symptoms, but then had immunity to smallpox. He tested the boy again with a sample from another lesion, and no symptomatology developed. Success was achieved!

Was Edward Jenner hailed as a hero of his time and admired for the work he was doing?

Not quite. Edward Jenner was met with some opposition from his contemporaries and the public alike.

Some members of the public claimed that vaccination would turn their children into cows, and they would grow hoofs and horns. Some said that their religious beliefs were in conflict with vaccination. They refused vaccination because it was not mentioned in the bible while others believed that infection was god's will; vaccination was, therefore, impeding the will of god. Some claimed that the government was overstepping and interfering in their lives. They demanded the right to their own bodily autonomy. The voices of the anti-vaccination movement grew so loud that the government had to create some options for the public to opt-out of vaccination. People even made archaic forms of memes against vaccination. For one example, please see the link here.

Hold on a second; this is starting to sound a whole lot like the COVID pandemic. If you replace the hoofs and horns with 5G towers, it's virtually identical. As it seems, if history is not studied, it is indeed doomed to repeat itself. It also appears that the anti-vaccination argument has remained unchanged over hundreds of years. But I digress.

Back to the topic at hand.

After mounting evidence grew, the British government made it compulsory for all to be vaccinated and even provided free vaccinations to the poor with the Vaccination acts of 1840 and 1853. Finally, in 1980, the WHO declared that smallpox was eradicated from the planet. Vaccination was no longer necessary - almost 200 years after Edward Jenner's first vaccination.

In the 1700s and 1800s, dried cowpox specimens were needed for vaccination. In 2019, mere days after COVID started to spread in Wuhan, the sequence for novel coronavirus 2019 (2019-nCoV) was made available by a Chinese laboratory. The labs that created the vaccines to 2019-nCoV did not initially have a sample of the virus. Digital communication of the viral genome was sufficient to initiate the development of a vaccine. How technology has evolved vaccination over the last hundred years is nothing short of miraculous.

Soooooo, whaddya think of this post?

Would you like me to continue writing about the origins and evolution of vaccination (with the development of the first laboratory vaccine - cholera vaccine by Louis Pasteur), or should I resume the regularly scheduled posts? I’m really curious to hear/read your thoughts. If it’s not too much trouble, please let me know by writing into the comment box below.

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Disclaimer: The article above is an opinion and is for informational/educational purposes only. This article is not medical advice. It is just a re-telling of medical history. The author has taken care in writing this post but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of this information.