Some vaccine history

History

Where are you going to, my pretty maid
I’m going a milking, sir, she said
May I go with you, my pretty maid
You’re kindly welcome, sir, she said
What is your father, my pretty maid
My father’s a farmer, sir, she said
What is your fortune, my petty maid
My face is my fortune, sir, she said.



What’s a poem about milkmaids got to do with immunisation – the development that has transformed health over the past 200 years?

Well it all began with a lucky observation in the second half of the eighteenth century. Namely that milkmaids, unlike everyone else in the population, miraculously escaped the ravages of smallpox disease.

Smallpox survivors were easy to recognise by their hideous facial pock marks. Yet mysteriously, many milkmaids boasted a blemish-free complexion. This led to the belief they were somehow protected from the disease through catching an earlier milder version (known as cowpox) from cows.

It was an Englishman, Edward Jenner, who in 1796, put this notion to the test when he inoculated a young boy – first with cowpox, then with smallpox.

Jenner’s experiment was a success. The boy didn’t get sick, and so was ushered in the current era of immunisation. The cowpox pustules Jenner used probably constituted the first vaccine.


http://www.abc.net.au/health/features/vaccination/history.htm