- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804754897
- eISBN:
- 9780804779494
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804754897.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter considers the social, political, and institutional frameworks within which Edward Jenner conceived and presented his hypothesis that cowpox virus, Variolae vaccinae, could be used to ...
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This chapter considers the social, political, and institutional frameworks within which Edward Jenner conceived and presented his hypothesis that cowpox virus, Variolae vaccinae, could be used to prevent smallpox. Since Variolae vaccinae can be transmitted successfully from person to person without loss of its essential properties, this would mean that protection against smallpox could be transmitted using human beings as the agents of transmission. Jenner tested whether vaccination could prevent smallpox in the recipient.Less
This chapter considers the social, political, and institutional frameworks within which Edward Jenner conceived and presented his hypothesis that cowpox virus, Variolae vaccinae, could be used to prevent smallpox. Since Variolae vaccinae can be transmitted successfully from person to person without loss of its essential properties, this would mean that protection against smallpox could be transmitted using human beings as the agents of transmission. Jenner tested whether vaccination could prevent smallpox in the recipient.
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310867
- eISBN:
- 9781846314216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846314216.006
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter focuses on Edward Jenner, who studied the use of cowpox to prevent smallpox. In May 1796 Sarah Nelmes, the daughter of a farmer in the neighbourhood of Berkeley, developed cowpox on her ...
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This chapter focuses on Edward Jenner, who studied the use of cowpox to prevent smallpox. In May 1796 Sarah Nelmes, the daughter of a farmer in the neighbourhood of Berkeley, developed cowpox on her hands after milking a cow suffering from the disease. Jenner took matter from one of the pustules with his lancet and transferred it to the arm of an eight-year-old boy called James Phipps, who in due course developed cowpox. Several weeks later he was inoculated with smallpox and failed to respond with even a modified form of the disease: the first successful example of what came to be called ‘vaccination’. The controversy generated by Jenner's findings is discussed.Less
This chapter focuses on Edward Jenner, who studied the use of cowpox to prevent smallpox. In May 1796 Sarah Nelmes, the daughter of a farmer in the neighbourhood of Berkeley, developed cowpox on her hands after milking a cow suffering from the disease. Jenner took matter from one of the pustules with his lancet and transferred it to the arm of an eight-year-old boy called James Phipps, who in due course developed cowpox. Several weeks later he was inoculated with smallpox and failed to respond with even a modified form of the disease: the first successful example of what came to be called ‘vaccination’. The controversy generated by Jenner's findings is discussed.
Mervyn Susser and Zena Stein
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195300666
- eISBN:
- 9780199863754
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195300666.003.0011
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter discusses the historical development of the concept of host and immunity. Smallpox is a disease that, until the 20h century, had long been among the greatest of human plagues. In the ...
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This chapter discusses the historical development of the concept of host and immunity. Smallpox is a disease that, until the 20h century, had long been among the greatest of human plagues. In the last quarter of the 18th century, Edward Jenner set public health on the path to its eventual virtual eradication in the late 20th century. Louis Pasteur, in his second major phase of thought and research, carried forward, consolidated, and generalized the themes of immunity and host resistance to specific organisms. His work was the necessary prelude to the general application of immunization for many diseases in domesticated animals and in human beings.Less
This chapter discusses the historical development of the concept of host and immunity. Smallpox is a disease that, until the 20h century, had long been among the greatest of human plagues. In the last quarter of the 18th century, Edward Jenner set public health on the path to its eventual virtual eradication in the late 20th century. Louis Pasteur, in his second major phase of thought and research, carried forward, consolidated, and generalized the themes of immunity and host resistance to specific organisms. His work was the necessary prelude to the general application of immunization for many diseases in domesticated animals and in human beings.
Stanley Williamson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310867
- eISBN:
- 9781846314216
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846314216
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Smallpox was for several centuries one of the most deadly, most contagious, and most feared of diseases. This book charts the history of one of the most controversial techniques in medical history. ...
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Smallpox was for several centuries one of the most deadly, most contagious, and most feared of diseases. This book charts the history of one of the most controversial techniques in medical history. Originating probably in Africa, smallpox progressed via the Middle and Near East, where it was studied around the end of the first millennium by Arab physicians. It arrived in Britain during Elizabethan times and was well established by the seventeenth century. During the closing years of the eighteenth century, a far-reaching and ultimately controversial development took place when Edward Jenner developed an inoculation for Smallpox based on a culture from Cowpox. The author examines the astonishing speed at which Jenner's technique of ‘vaccination’ was taken up, culminating in the ‘Compulsory Vaccination Act of 1853’. The Act made a painful and sometimes fatal medical practice for all children obligatory and as a result set an important precedent for governmental regulation of medical welfare. It remained in force until 1946 and was only ended after decades of intense pressure from the National Anti-vaccination League, but the issues raised by this book remain current today in debates about vaccination. The book highlights the social, political, and ethical consequences of compulsory vaccination and the repercussions that followed the ending of the policy through the most major medical resistance campaign in European medical history.Less
Smallpox was for several centuries one of the most deadly, most contagious, and most feared of diseases. This book charts the history of one of the most controversial techniques in medical history. Originating probably in Africa, smallpox progressed via the Middle and Near East, where it was studied around the end of the first millennium by Arab physicians. It arrived in Britain during Elizabethan times and was well established by the seventeenth century. During the closing years of the eighteenth century, a far-reaching and ultimately controversial development took place when Edward Jenner developed an inoculation for Smallpox based on a culture from Cowpox. The author examines the astonishing speed at which Jenner's technique of ‘vaccination’ was taken up, culminating in the ‘Compulsory Vaccination Act of 1853’. The Act made a painful and sometimes fatal medical practice for all children obligatory and as a result set an important precedent for governmental regulation of medical welfare. It remained in force until 1946 and was only ended after decades of intense pressure from the National Anti-vaccination League, but the issues raised by this book remain current today in debates about vaccination. The book highlights the social, political, and ethical consequences of compulsory vaccination and the repercussions that followed the ending of the policy through the most major medical resistance campaign in European medical history.
Amanda B. Moniz
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190240356
- eISBN:
- 9780190240387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190240356.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century, British and Irish Early Modern History
Long-standing doubts about universal benevolence came to the fore as the French Revolutionary Wars and the Haitian Revolution destabilized the Atlantic world. Some activists had always contested the ...
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Long-standing doubts about universal benevolence came to the fore as the French Revolutionary Wars and the Haitian Revolution destabilized the Atlantic world. Some activists had always contested the new trend by pursuing national and particularistic approaches. Now, many more criticized it and pressed for the primacy of national or local moral obligation. Yet in spite of the waning of cosmopolitan ideals, philanthropists across causes continued working with faraway colleagues. Most important, British, American, and European activists jointly undertook a campaign to eradicate smallpox. Vaccination activists built on the structures of the humane society cause but adapted the older movement’s person-by-drowning person approach to a global scale. With this undertaking, activists from the last Atlantic generation and their protégés together achieved a worldwide reach in beneficence. Paradoxically, they celebrated this accomplishment and the ongoing cooperation in other causes in nationalist tones.Less
Long-standing doubts about universal benevolence came to the fore as the French Revolutionary Wars and the Haitian Revolution destabilized the Atlantic world. Some activists had always contested the new trend by pursuing national and particularistic approaches. Now, many more criticized it and pressed for the primacy of national or local moral obligation. Yet in spite of the waning of cosmopolitan ideals, philanthropists across causes continued working with faraway colleagues. Most important, British, American, and European activists jointly undertook a campaign to eradicate smallpox. Vaccination activists built on the structures of the humane society cause but adapted the older movement’s person-by-drowning person approach to a global scale. With this undertaking, activists from the last Atlantic generation and their protégés together achieved a worldwide reach in beneficence. Paradoxically, they celebrated this accomplishment and the ongoing cooperation in other causes in nationalist tones.
Gavin Weightman
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780300241440
- eISBN:
- 9780300256314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300241440.003.0015
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This chapter assesses whether Edward Jenner would have discovered the protective power of cowpox even if there had been no inoculation before vaccination. In his account of how he made his discovery, ...
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This chapter assesses whether Edward Jenner would have discovered the protective power of cowpox even if there had been no inoculation before vaccination. In his account of how he made his discovery, Jenner attributes it directly to his experiences as an inoculator. All the histories Jenner presented to support his case for vaccine inoculation could not have been performed without Suttonian inoculation. And when Jenner came to attempt his first practical experiment with the vaccine, he was already an experienced Suttonian inoculator. He believed the key to Sutton's success was the manner of inserting the infective matter with the lancet barely breaking the skin or drawing blood. That is how he chose to perform his first vaccination.Less
This chapter assesses whether Edward Jenner would have discovered the protective power of cowpox even if there had been no inoculation before vaccination. In his account of how he made his discovery, Jenner attributes it directly to his experiences as an inoculator. All the histories Jenner presented to support his case for vaccine inoculation could not have been performed without Suttonian inoculation. And when Jenner came to attempt his first practical experiment with the vaccine, he was already an experienced Suttonian inoculator. He believed the key to Sutton's success was the manner of inserting the infective matter with the lancet barely breaking the skin or drawing blood. That is how he chose to perform his first vaccination.
Robert D. Hicks (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469643205
- eISBN:
- 9781469643229
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469643205.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
As smallpox spread through the Confederacy, its physicians tried to innoculate the population against the dreaded disease. They created vaccine matter, which are human-made artifacts, by infecting ...
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As smallpox spread through the Confederacy, its physicians tried to innoculate the population against the dreaded disease. They created vaccine matter, which are human-made artifacts, by infecting civilians, and they then tried to treat soldiers, who did not always follow correct medical procedures.Less
As smallpox spread through the Confederacy, its physicians tried to innoculate the population against the dreaded disease. They created vaccine matter, which are human-made artifacts, by infecting civilians, and they then tried to treat soldiers, who did not always follow correct medical procedures.
Gavin Weightman
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780300241440
- eISBN:
- 9780300256314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300241440.003.0014
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This chapter discusses how vaccination was to conquer the world in a very short space of time, despite the fact that the research on which it was based was very limited and, in some vital respects, ...
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This chapter discusses how vaccination was to conquer the world in a very short space of time, despite the fact that the research on which it was based was very limited and, in some vital respects, faulty. Edward Jenner was ingenious and imaginative but he was not meticulous. This very soon became apparent as experiments were made with the vaccine. There was one great problem when experiments with the effectiveness of cowpox vaccine were begun in earnest in many parts of the world: where to get the necessary infective matter. Ultimately, 'Cowmania' was a wild, worldwide clamour for a medical innovation which had not been subject to more than cursory, and not always satisfactory, scrutiny. Suttonian inoculation, on the other hand, had stood the test of time and there were those who doubted if vaccination offered a great improvement. One, not surprisingly, was Daniel Sutton himself.Less
This chapter discusses how vaccination was to conquer the world in a very short space of time, despite the fact that the research on which it was based was very limited and, in some vital respects, faulty. Edward Jenner was ingenious and imaginative but he was not meticulous. This very soon became apparent as experiments were made with the vaccine. There was one great problem when experiments with the effectiveness of cowpox vaccine were begun in earnest in many parts of the world: where to get the necessary infective matter. Ultimately, 'Cowmania' was a wild, worldwide clamour for a medical innovation which had not been subject to more than cursory, and not always satisfactory, scrutiny. Suttonian inoculation, on the other hand, had stood the test of time and there were those who doubted if vaccination offered a great improvement. One, not surprisingly, was Daniel Sutton himself.
Gavin Weightman
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780300241440
- eISBN:
- 9780300256314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300241440.003.0017
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This chapter looks at how Daniel Sutton died forgotten at the age of eighty-three on February 3, 1819. There was no institution to carry Sutton's name into the era of vaccination; his family was ...
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This chapter looks at how Daniel Sutton died forgotten at the age of eighty-three on February 3, 1819. There was no institution to carry Sutton's name into the era of vaccination; his family was scattered and none had any connection with medicine. There is not a single Sutton memorial in London or anywhere in the country, or, as far as is known, in the rest of the world. His importance in the defeat of smallpox would not be acknowledged even now if it were not for the interest historians have taken in eighteenth-century medicine in recent years. There was certainly contemporary support for the view that Suttonian inoculation had had a hugely beneficial effect on health in the eighteenth century. While vaccination was hailed as much safer and more successful than Suttonian inoculation, smallpox continued to attack communities throughout the nineteenth century and Edward Jenner's reputation waxed and waned.Less
This chapter looks at how Daniel Sutton died forgotten at the age of eighty-three on February 3, 1819. There was no institution to carry Sutton's name into the era of vaccination; his family was scattered and none had any connection with medicine. There is not a single Sutton memorial in London or anywhere in the country, or, as far as is known, in the rest of the world. His importance in the defeat of smallpox would not be acknowledged even now if it were not for the interest historians have taken in eighteenth-century medicine in recent years. There was certainly contemporary support for the view that Suttonian inoculation had had a hugely beneficial effect on health in the eighteenth century. While vaccination was hailed as much safer and more successful than Suttonian inoculation, smallpox continued to attack communities throughout the nineteenth century and Edward Jenner's reputation waxed and waned.
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804754897
- eISBN:
- 9780804779494
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804754897.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Variola major, the virus that causes smallpox, circulates continuously from one susceptible human to another. As the variola virus establishes its migratory sphere, a dramatic transmission of the ...
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Variola major, the virus that causes smallpox, circulates continuously from one susceptible human to another. As the variola virus establishes its migratory sphere, a dramatic transmission of the virus occurs. By the eighteenth century, smallpox had become a universal disease that afflicted populations worldwide. This chapter reviews methods of combatting smallpox before 1800, focusing on a technique called variolation, which involves the exposure of an uninfected person to a person with a mild case of smallpox. Because of the great risks involved, this technique failed to gain official support in Japan. Nevertheless, Japanese physicians continued to seek ideas and instruction from foreign physicians who were experimenting with variolation techniques. The discovery of an alternative method by Edward Jenner before the end of the century initiated a revolution in medicine.Less
Variola major, the virus that causes smallpox, circulates continuously from one susceptible human to another. As the variola virus establishes its migratory sphere, a dramatic transmission of the virus occurs. By the eighteenth century, smallpox had become a universal disease that afflicted populations worldwide. This chapter reviews methods of combatting smallpox before 1800, focusing on a technique called variolation, which involves the exposure of an uninfected person to a person with a mild case of smallpox. Because of the great risks involved, this technique failed to gain official support in Japan. Nevertheless, Japanese physicians continued to seek ideas and instruction from foreign physicians who were experimenting with variolation techniques. The discovery of an alternative method by Edward Jenner before the end of the century initiated a revolution in medicine.
Gavin Weightman
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780300241440
- eISBN:
- 9780300256314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300241440.003.0018
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This chapter assesses the mystery of immunity. Today, Edward Jenner is often referred to as the 'father of immunology'. But really, Jenner had no more claim to that title than Lady Mary Wortley ...
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This chapter assesses the mystery of immunity. Today, Edward Jenner is often referred to as the 'father of immunology'. But really, Jenner had no more claim to that title than Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, or the Greek women inoculating in Constantinople, or Daniel Sutton. None of them knew anything of the micro-organisms that Louis Pasteur and his contemporaries called 'germs'. It took well over a century after the deaths of Sutton and Jenner for an accumulation of scientific investigation to gain some understanding of what had been going on medically when the inoculators and vaccinators sought to bring smallpox under control. And it was a long time after the identification of 'germs', and the detective work that isolated the elements in them that caused specific infections, that it was understood that inoculation and vaccination worked because they triggered an immune response in the patient.Less
This chapter assesses the mystery of immunity. Today, Edward Jenner is often referred to as the 'father of immunology'. But really, Jenner had no more claim to that title than Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, or the Greek women inoculating in Constantinople, or Daniel Sutton. None of them knew anything of the micro-organisms that Louis Pasteur and his contemporaries called 'germs'. It took well over a century after the deaths of Sutton and Jenner for an accumulation of scientific investigation to gain some understanding of what had been going on medically when the inoculators and vaccinators sought to bring smallpox under control. And it was a long time after the identification of 'germs', and the detective work that isolated the elements in them that caused specific infections, that it was understood that inoculation and vaccination worked because they triggered an immune response in the patient.
Gavin Weightman
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780300241440
- eISBN:
- 9780300256314
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300241440.001.0001
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
Smallpox was the scourge of the eighteenth century: it showed no mercy, almost wiping out whole societies. Young and old, poor and royalty were equally at risk — unless they had survived a previous ...
More
Smallpox was the scourge of the eighteenth century: it showed no mercy, almost wiping out whole societies. Young and old, poor and royalty were equally at risk — unless they had survived a previous attack. Daniel Sutton, a young surgeon from Suffolk, used this knowledge to pioneer a simple and effective inoculation method to counter the disease. His technique paved the way for Edward Jenner's discovery of vaccination — but, while Jenner is revered, Sutton has been vilified for not widely revealing his methods until later in life. This book reclaims Sutton's importance, showing how the clinician's practical and observational discoveries advanced understanding of the nature of disease. The book explores Sutton's personal and professional development, and the wider world of eighteenth-century health in which he practised inoculation. Sutton's brilliant and exacting mind had a significant impact on medicine — the effects of which can still be seen today.Less
Smallpox was the scourge of the eighteenth century: it showed no mercy, almost wiping out whole societies. Young and old, poor and royalty were equally at risk — unless they had survived a previous attack. Daniel Sutton, a young surgeon from Suffolk, used this knowledge to pioneer a simple and effective inoculation method to counter the disease. His technique paved the way for Edward Jenner's discovery of vaccination — but, while Jenner is revered, Sutton has been vilified for not widely revealing his methods until later in life. This book reclaims Sutton's importance, showing how the clinician's practical and observational discoveries advanced understanding of the nature of disease. The book explores Sutton's personal and professional development, and the wider world of eighteenth-century health in which he practised inoculation. Sutton's brilliant and exacting mind had a significant impact on medicine — the effects of which can still be seen today.
Gavin Weightman
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780300241440
- eISBN:
- 9780300256314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300241440.003.0016
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This chapter examines how the worldwide excitement for Edward Jenner's vaccine in the first flush of Cowmania promised a new era in which parents would clamour to have their children protected by ...
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This chapter examines how the worldwide excitement for Edward Jenner's vaccine in the first flush of Cowmania promised a new era in which parents would clamour to have their children protected by this new and safe form of inoculation. This would have realised the dream of John Haygarth, who had imagined a national scheme and dismissed it on the grounds that it was unenforceable. But vaccination was not greeted with the enthusiasm that might have been anticipated. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, vaccination was favoured over inoculation by Parliament and by a majority of the medical profession, but not by the public. Faced with the threat of an outbreak of smallpox, the offer of free vaccination was often turned down in favour of tried and trusted inoculation in what was now the 'old method'. Authorities realised that, to be effective, a general inoculation had to offer the public a choice of Sutton or Jenner.Less
This chapter examines how the worldwide excitement for Edward Jenner's vaccine in the first flush of Cowmania promised a new era in which parents would clamour to have their children protected by this new and safe form of inoculation. This would have realised the dream of John Haygarth, who had imagined a national scheme and dismissed it on the grounds that it was unenforceable. But vaccination was not greeted with the enthusiasm that might have been anticipated. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, vaccination was favoured over inoculation by Parliament and by a majority of the medical profession, but not by the public. Faced with the threat of an outbreak of smallpox, the offer of free vaccination was often turned down in favour of tried and trusted inoculation in what was now the 'old method'. Authorities realised that, to be effective, a general inoculation had to offer the public a choice of Sutton or Jenner.