This is how the rabies vaccine was administered at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in the early 20th century. The Covid-19 pandemic has reminded humanity how dangerous and destructive outbreaks of infectious diseases can be, and how vaccines are the only hope for returning to normal life in such cases.
COVID-19 is not the first enemy to be fought by mass vaccination. Hundreds of millions of people around the world have been lucky enough to stay alive because a solution was found to combat the invisible killers that have terrorized the world. This is true, of course, for those who live in areas with access to medical care.
Here are some examples of how vaccines have changed lives. Vaccination is perhaps the greatest success story in this area. In the 20th century alone, this highly contagious viral disease killed more than 300 million people. The number of victims in earlier epochs is incalculable. About 30% of those infected with smallpox died, often in agony as their entire bodies were covered with festering abscesses. The rest either went blind or were left with horrible scars on their skin for the rest of their lives.
For centuries, people desperately searched for a cure for smallpox – and eventually created the first vaccine. The idea that artificially induced mild forms of disease can create immunity in humans is said to have originated in China. According to sources, for about 1000 years, people there inhaled powder made from finely crushed scabs of smallpox patients through their noses or inserted pieces of cotton soaked in smallpox pus into their ears.
People were disfigured and died from smallpox, leaving scars on their bodies. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. The number of offers should remain: Episodes The end of the story: Podcast Advertising. In Africa, a thread soaked in pus was pulled through the skin with a needle. In 18th-century Britain, the famous aristocrat and intellectual Lady Mary Montague was a vigorous proponent of smallpox vaccination. She had suffered from smallpox in her youth and had seen the practice in Turkey, where her husband was an ambassador. The method was not characterized by reliability. About one in thirty patients contracted a severe form of smallpox and died as a result. Meanwhile, English farmers had long noticed that cowpox was infectious but not fatal to humans. After studying this phenomenon, physician Edward Jenner created a reliable and safe vaccine based on cowpox. On May 14, 1796, Jenner inoculated her eight-year-old farmer’s son, James Phipps, who later lived to a ripe old age. Two years later, he published the famous pamphlet “An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae” at his own expense, as the Royal Society was suspicious of Jenner’s method.
