The Origin of Vaccines

Jennifer CraigB.S.N., M.A., Ph.D., D.Hom.

February 17, 2010

Smallpox Rash

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 1689 - 1762

Lady Mary and Inoculation

Dr. Lettsom1806

Deaths from Smallpox Inoculation

42 years prior to inoculation = 72 per thousand

42 years after inoculation = 89 per thousand

Edward Jenner1749-1823

• Fellow of Royal Society for paper on cuckoos

• Apprenticed to an apothecary and a barber-surgeon

• Set up practice as barber-surgeon

• Purchased MD

Dr. Walter Hadwen JP, MD, LRCP, MRCS, LSA

1854 - 1932

“Now this man Jenner had never passed a medical examination in his life… he obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine for the sum of ₤15.”

Gloucestershire

Dr. Charles Creighton1847-1927

• Jenner and Vaccination: a Strange Chapter of Medical History

• Published 1889 and recently re-published

Cowpox and Smallpox

• Cowpox (Orthopox vaccinia)

– occurs on teats of cows only when in milk

• Smallpox (Orthopox variola)

– found only in humans

Jenner and James Phipps 1796

Bogus Test July 2, 1796

• Did not use smallpox pus in inoculation test

• Used pus from an artificial inoculation

Dr. Charles Creighton

“To a pathologist or epidemiologist, it is as truly nonsense to speak of cowpox becoming smallpox as it is legitimate nonsense to prove that a horse-chest nut is a chestnut horse.”

Myth that Cowpox Prevented Smallpox

“The cow doctors (vets) could have told him of hundreds of cases where smallpox had followed cowpox.” Hadwen

Jenner called these cases “spurious cowpox” but “spuriousness … had no other ground than the failure to ward off smallpox.” Creighton

Further tests

Tried to convince people that source of smallpox lay in an infection of horse’s hooves, known as ‘grease.’

March 16, 1798, inoculated John Baker, age 5, with pus from horse with grease. Boy developed a sloughing ulcer but he was “rendered unfit for inoculation by unhappily becoming a corpse.”

Outcome for James Phipps

• Developed ulcers at inoculation sites

• Possible erysipelas

• Tuberculosis

Outcome for Jenner

• Statues

• Museum

• Revered in history

My son visiting Gloucester Cathedral

1807

Parliament granted Jenner equivalent of half a million of today’s dollar. Voted 59 for and 56 against.

Promised his product had the “singularly beneficial effect of rendering through life the person so inoculated perfectly secure from the infection of smallpox.”

Making a Smallpox Vaccine

Original vaccine ingredients

• Pus, scabs, sero-sanginous discharge

• Glycerine

YearsThree

epidemics

% Increase in Population

Deaths from Smallpox

1857 – 58 - 59 14,244

1863 – 64 - 65 7% 20.059

1870 – 71 - 72 10% 44,840Tebb, 1884

Compulsory Vaccination 1853

Epidemic Dates Increase population

Increase in Smallpox

Deaths from Smallpox

1st 1857 – 58 - 59 14,244

2nd 1863 – 64 - 65 7% 50% 20,059

3rd 1870 – 71 – 72 10% 120% 44,840

Deaths from smallpox in first 10 years after compulsory vaccination, 1854 - 1863

33,515

In second 10 years, 1864 - 1873 70,458

Tebb, 1884

Years Vaccinations per 100 births

(%)

Deaths from Smallpox

(total)

Deaths from Smallpox

(per 100,000 population)

1872- 1881

85.5 1999 15.2

1882- 1891

82.2 923 34.1

1892– 1901

68.0 436 1.4

1902– 1911

67.4 395 1.2

1912– 1921

43.5 12 0.1

William Farr 1807 - 1883

• Before compulsory vaccination: Mean mortality for 10,000 population = 2.04

• After compulsory vaccination: Mean mortality for 10,000 population = 10.24

James BiggsSanitary Inspector of Leicester

Clean markets

Clean streets

Garbage removal

Sanitary housing

Pure water supply

James Biggs Leicester

• 1892-3: 19.3 cases of smallpox per 10,000 in Leicester

• 1892-3: 123.3 cases in similar-sized Warrington with 99.2% vaccinated.

Dr. John Tilden (1851-1940)

“There is no question but that perfect sanitation has almost obliterated this disease (smallpox), and sooner or later will dispose of it entirely. Of course, when that time comes, in all probability credit will be given to vaccination.”

Dr. Walter Hadwen JP, MD, LRCP, MRCS, LSA

1854 - 1932

Gave an address on January 25, 1896 about vaccination to the people of Gloucester.

whale.to/m/hadwen9.html

Hadwen’s Address, 1896

Goddard’s Assembly Rooms turned into Theatre de Luxe in 1919

London attic 1863

London 1866

Dr. L. A. Parry, BMJ, Jan. 1928

1. How is it that smallpox is five times as likely to be fatal in the vaccinated as in the unvaccinated?

2. How is it that, as the % of people vaccinated has steadily fallen, the number of people attacked with variola has declined pari passu?

3. How is it that in some of our best vaccinated towns smallpox is rife whilst in some of our worst vaccinated towns it is almost unknown?

Dr. L. A. Parry cont.

4. How is it that 80% of the cases admitted to smallpox hospitals have been vaccinated whilst 20% have not?

5. How is it that in Germany, the best vaccinated country in the world, there are more deaths in proportion to the population than in England?

6. Is it possible to explain the lessened incidence and fatality of smallpox … due to improved hygiene and administrative control?

Reply to Parry

We think Dr. Parry, in his desire for enlightenment, would have been wiser not to introduce assumptions of fact into the framework of his questions.

Registrar General of England

• 1910 – 1933: 109 children under five died of smallpox

• 1910 – 1933: 270 children died from vaccination

• 1934 – 1961: No children under five died from smallpox

• 1934 – 1961: 115 children died from vaccination

Dr. Charles Creighton

“It is difficult to conceive what will be the excuse made for a century of cowpoxing; but it cannot be doubted that the practice will appear in as absurd a light to the common sense of the twentieth century as blood-letting now does to us.”

George Bernard Shaw 1931

“I have no doubt whatsoever that vaccination is an unscientific abomination and should be made a criminal practice.”

Dr. Beddow Baily, 1936

“It would seem impossible for a rational mind to conceive that a filthy virus derived from a smallpox corpse, the ulcerated udder of a cow, or the running sores of a sick horse’s heels, and cultivated in scabbed festers on a calf’s abdomen could fail to have disastrous effects when inoculated into the human body.”

Dr. Jennifer Craig, 2010

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