The Smallpox Vaccine And The Leicester Method (1877)
Years ago I had to read many books about the history of vaccines because I was taking nursing courses for my BSN in nursing. I decided to work as a paralegal instead and changed my course work. But I still remember a little bit about the history of medicine, especially vaccines. The study of human diseases is not pretty and that may be the reason why I decided to become a paralegal instead of a nurse. I will be keeping my articles simple with legit citations. My motto is simple is as simple does, when I try to write like I paint I totally get lost in the details.
The smallpox vaccine was developed before medical science knew what the human immune system was and how it worked.
Dairy maids back in the mid-1700s had a rumor going around the milking circuit that a dairy maid had been infected with cowpox. Cowpox was a common infection around the cows udder. When the human smallpox reared it’s ugly head infecting townships far and wide the dairy maid who was sickened by cowpox didn't get sick from smallpox.
Edward Jenner caught wind of the rumor and went to investigate. Edward Jenner was a physician and scientist who developed the smallpox vaccine, the term vaccine came from the term Variolae Vaccinae smallpox of the cow. Jenner is known as the father of immunology even through science didn’t know anything about the human immune system at that time.
The scientist of Jenner’s time around the mid 1700s found that scrapping the pus from an infected cow udder and smearing the pus on an open wound would cause a mild form of pox like symptoms. The cow pox udder pus... which may also contain the pox from goats and horses and sometimes human smallpox was mixed with glycerin and then applied to the healthy subjects pierced skin. The scientist would take a sharp object and pierce the skin of a human subject several times and apply the mixture. Many people died of the different varieties of diseases rather than develop a resistance to small pox. Kind of reminds me of the people die or have harsh reactions from the mixtures of adjuvants in our modern day vaccines.
The death rate from the first vaccines were higher than the death rate from people who caught the disease naturally.
When the vaccine was first developed there was no way to figure out which kind of smallpox the person had. The vaccine could of held a variety of pox, monkeypox, chickenpox, or human pox. Back in the day any pox was smallpox even though the vaccine was said to have only animal pox. It was the most contaminated vaccine of it’s time.
There was a town in England, Leicester which had one of the highest rates of vaccinations in the world at that time. The township was experiencing higher than normal smallpox outbreaks. The mayor of the township was under pressure from residents to stop vaccinating because people were becoming horribly ill and dying. With the help of other great minds an alternative protocol was developed called the Leicester Method.
Medical scientist predicted plague like results if the township stopped vaccinating. Scientist predicted everyone would die around the world because the township decided to stop vaccinating. However, the opposite happened the town had the lowest rate of infections and deaths compared to vaccinated populations. Does this remind you of the doomsayers of modern times regarding horrible deaths thousands of children would suffer from common diseases like measles and the flu, which most of us baby boomers survived with ease... and....omg....unknown plagues like the bird flu, ebola, or zika virus ?
How did the township stop the smallpox epidemics? From the data taken from the history of the Leicester township, isolating the infected people in fever hospitals, better hygiene and sanitary protocols stopped the spread of smallpox and this was called the Leicester Method.
NCBI “The gut microbiome shapes intestinal immune responses during health and disease”
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