1 00:00:02,279 --> 00:00:06,000 Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Today's classic is brought to you by a 2 00:00:06,040 --> 00:00:09,479 Speaker 1: tidbit of information that I stumbled across completely at random 3 00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:14,320 Speaker 1: while doing research on something else. Entirely. It's about Edward Jenner, 4 00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:17,560 Speaker 1: known as the father of immunology thanks to his lifetime 5 00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:21,640 Speaker 1: spent working with smallpox vaccines. And we mentioned the work 6 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:25,239 Speaker 1: of the Reverend Cotton, Mother and Dr Zabdiel Boylston in 7 00:00:25,400 --> 00:00:30,080 Speaker 1: combating a smallpox outbreak in Boston in one using a 8 00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:33,839 Speaker 1: technique called variolation. But what we don't say what Tracy 9 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:36,640 Speaker 1: just learned was it Mother first heard about this practice 10 00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:41,640 Speaker 1: from one Seamus, an enslaved man Mother's congregation had bought 11 00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:45,559 Speaker 1: for him. Only Semis told Mother about vary elation and 12 00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:49,240 Speaker 1: that it was commonly used among Africans. So it seemed 13 00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:52,160 Speaker 1: like a good time to re share that old episode 14 00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:54,880 Speaker 1: with this new to us tidbit. Will link to an 15 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:58,000 Speaker 1: article from the Hutchins Center for African and African American 16 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:01,680 Speaker 1: Research at Harvard with more and remation about on a Semis. 17 00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:04,959 Speaker 1: One last note, we actually say in this show that 18 00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:08,000 Speaker 1: smallpox is the only disease that's been eradicated thanks to 19 00:01:08,120 --> 00:01:12,480 Speaker 1: humanity's effort. But we learned afterwards that render pest is 20 00:01:12,520 --> 00:01:17,920 Speaker 1: another formally declared eradicated in about two years before this 21 00:01:17,959 --> 00:01:20,959 Speaker 1: podcast originally came out, so keep that in mind as 22 00:01:20,959 --> 00:01:28,040 Speaker 1: you listen. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class 23 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:37,120 Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to 24 00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:40,559 Speaker 1: the podcast. I am Tracy Wilson when I'm Polly Fried. 25 00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:45,640 Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about smallpox, super fun topics. Well, 26 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:50,440 Speaker 1: and it's been uh pretty much gone for long enough 27 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:52,920 Speaker 1: that I think most people don't really have a sense 28 00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:55,760 Speaker 1: of just what it was like. Like, I think the 29 00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:58,720 Speaker 1: closest equivalent most people have today's chicken pox. But even 30 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:01,200 Speaker 1: if that doesn't touch it into of horrifying this No, 31 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:03,840 Speaker 1: even now that we have chicken pox vaccine, a lot 32 00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:06,920 Speaker 1: of people have never experienced chicken pox. And I coincidentally 33 00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:10,800 Speaker 1: never got chicken pox. What I had to be vaccinated 34 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:13,160 Speaker 1: for it as an a grown up because I never 35 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:17,080 Speaker 1: got it as a child, neither did my brother. So smallpox, 36 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:20,240 Speaker 1: it's not like super chicken pox. It's been around for 37 00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:24,280 Speaker 1: longer than recorded history, and it probably originated in Africa 38 00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:28,560 Speaker 1: more than ten thousand years ago, and it spread around 39 00:02:28,600 --> 00:02:33,400 Speaker 1: the world following migration and trade. We have physical evidence 40 00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:36,440 Speaker 1: that it existed as far back as six b C, 41 00:02:36,840 --> 00:02:40,200 Speaker 1: thanks to the mummified head of Ramsey's the Fifth which 42 00:02:40,200 --> 00:02:44,920 Speaker 1: has evidence of smallpox physically. It was also described in 43 00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:48,079 Speaker 1: writing in China and India at about the same time. 44 00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:51,960 Speaker 1: But based on all that knowledge, it's pretty clear that 45 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:57,360 Speaker 1: smallpox existed before writing did. Yeah, and there are several 46 00:02:57,400 --> 00:02:59,960 Speaker 1: types of smallpox, and there are there's a range of 47 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:03,840 Speaker 1: possible complications that can come from it, but in general, uh, 48 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:07,200 Speaker 1: it causes these small, pus filled lesions on the skin, 49 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:11,040 Speaker 1: and people that have it also get a fever normally 50 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:15,120 Speaker 1: and other flu like symptoms. And when it existed in 51 00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:19,119 Speaker 1: the wild, it was fatal and roughly of all cases 52 00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:22,960 Speaker 1: for babies, that number was between eight and so a 53 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:26,400 Speaker 1: really high mortality rate. And in the eighteenth century, as 54 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:28,960 Speaker 1: much as ten percent of the population of Europe died 55 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:33,320 Speaker 1: of smallpox every year, and more than three million people 56 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:37,320 Speaker 1: died of smallpox during the twentieth century. Those are numbers 57 00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:40,600 Speaker 1: that I bet people were not expecting. No, they're pretty enormous. Yeah, 58 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:43,440 Speaker 1: that's a lot of people. Yeah, it's a contagious disease 59 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:46,440 Speaker 1: and once somebody had it, there was really not anything 60 00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:49,840 Speaker 1: that could be done. Most treatments that people tried did 61 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:52,560 Speaker 1: not have any real medical value. One was called the 62 00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:54,880 Speaker 1: red treatment, which was basically surrounding the patient with the 63 00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:58,720 Speaker 1: color red, but the patient did have to be clean, 64 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,120 Speaker 1: fed and cared for until the scabs fell off, and 65 00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:05,440 Speaker 1: that was a few weeks after the pox started to form. 66 00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:10,000 Speaker 1: Smallpox was contagious that entire time, so it spread really 67 00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:13,720 Speaker 1: easily among families, caregivers, and other people who were living 68 00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:17,919 Speaker 1: in close quarters, and the people that survived having smallpox 69 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:22,599 Speaker 1: often had extensive and disfiguring scarring. There were actually etiquette 70 00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:26,039 Speaker 1: manuals that offered advice on how to word a condolence 71 00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:28,680 Speaker 1: letter to your friend after her lovely face had been 72 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:33,800 Speaker 1: horribly disfigured and scarred by smallpox. Many survivors also faced 73 00:04:33,839 --> 00:04:38,960 Speaker 1: other complications, including blindness, and before it's eradication, smallpox actually 74 00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:43,040 Speaker 1: caused more blindness than any other condition. So this disease 75 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:47,360 Speaker 1: killed royalty, It changed lines of succession, It struck down 76 00:04:47,440 --> 00:04:50,040 Speaker 1: armies in the field, and shifted the tide of battle. 77 00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:53,040 Speaker 1: An epidemic near the end of the Roman Empire killed 78 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:56,320 Speaker 1: almost seven million people, and when it was introduced into 79 00:04:56,320 --> 00:05:00,080 Speaker 1: the America's It devastated the native population, and it is 80 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:03,200 Speaker 1: also spread to native people's on purpose as a form 81 00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:06,360 Speaker 1: of germ warfare during the French and Indian War. It 82 00:05:06,440 --> 00:05:11,200 Speaker 1: was so influential and terrifying that many polytheistic religions have 83 00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:14,520 Speaker 1: gods of smallpox, and there are Christian saints and martyrs 84 00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:18,640 Speaker 1: associated with it and its victims as well. So smallpox 85 00:05:18,839 --> 00:05:22,159 Speaker 1: was a disease deeply dreaded and feared, and it did 86 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:27,359 Speaker 1: not mess around. But one man gets the credit thankfully 87 00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:31,160 Speaker 1: changed all of this, and that was Edward Jenner, and 88 00:05:31,200 --> 00:05:34,440 Speaker 1: he's the topic of most of this podcast. Yeah, but 89 00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:36,120 Speaker 1: before we talk about him, we kind of need to 90 00:05:36,120 --> 00:05:39,080 Speaker 1: talk about like the state of the world before he 91 00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:41,960 Speaker 1: came along. We've talked a little bit about the germ 92 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:44,440 Speaker 1: theory of disease and how it did not really start 93 00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:47,000 Speaker 1: to spread around the United States and Europe until the 94 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:51,159 Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. But people weren't completely clueless about ideas like 95 00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:55,640 Speaker 1: contagiousness and immunity before this point. People knew that if 96 00:05:55,640 --> 00:05:58,240 Speaker 1: you were around someone who had smallpox for a long time, 97 00:05:58,279 --> 00:06:00,880 Speaker 1: you would probably get it too. And for more than 98 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:03,719 Speaker 1: two thousand years, people have also known that a person 99 00:06:03,760 --> 00:06:07,240 Speaker 1: who had survived smallpox wasn't likely to get it again, 100 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:11,400 Speaker 1: so smallpox survivors were tapped often to care for the 101 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:14,520 Speaker 1: sick because they appeared to be protected. So it's not 102 00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:17,320 Speaker 1: really a far jump from those two ideas to the 103 00:06:17,320 --> 00:06:21,080 Speaker 1: thought that maybe you could give somebody smallpox on purpose 104 00:06:21,440 --> 00:06:23,960 Speaker 1: so that they would be immune later, sort of how 105 00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:27,279 Speaker 1: Like pre vaccine, sometimes parents would send their kids to 106 00:06:27,279 --> 00:06:29,440 Speaker 1: play with somebody who had chicken pox to get it 107 00:06:29,440 --> 00:06:32,039 Speaker 1: over with. I guess there are probably parents who don't 108 00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:34,279 Speaker 1: want to immunize their children who still do this, but 109 00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:36,320 Speaker 1: it would take a lot more efforts since chicken box 110 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:39,279 Speaker 1: is a lot more rare now. Yeah, And that was 111 00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:42,320 Speaker 1: often done, especially with young children, because allegedly, if you 112 00:06:42,320 --> 00:06:45,880 Speaker 1: get chicken pox younger less horrible than if you get 113 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:48,360 Speaker 1: it older. Getting chicken pox as an adult can be 114 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:52,400 Speaker 1: extremely horribly painful, which is why I have had a vaccine. 115 00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:57,719 Speaker 1: So the thing is that for the most part, this 116 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:01,080 Speaker 1: whole method of um of exposing somebody to smallpox on 117 00:07:01,120 --> 00:07:05,160 Speaker 1: purpose actually a whole lot grosser than chicken pox parties. 118 00:07:05,760 --> 00:07:11,680 Speaker 1: Oh yeah. The earliest attempts to deal with this happened 119 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:14,640 Speaker 1: in China at least a thousand years ago, and in 120 00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:18,480 Speaker 1: six seventy traders introduced the practice to the Ottoman Empire, 121 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:22,280 Speaker 1: where it started to progress to other nations. Sometimes it 122 00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:25,680 Speaker 1: was as simple as deliberately exposing yourself to someone with 123 00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:29,040 Speaker 1: a relatively mild case of the disease, but a more 124 00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:33,000 Speaker 1: direct method and also the grocer one, was to use 125 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:36,760 Speaker 1: a needle or a lancet to extract matter from an 126 00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:40,200 Speaker 1: infected person smallpox lesions and put it under the skin 127 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:43,960 Speaker 1: of a healthy person. Sometimes the material would be dried 128 00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:46,000 Speaker 1: out or stored at room temperature for a while so 129 00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:49,680 Speaker 1: it wasn't as lethal as fresh material. And another method 130 00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:53,960 Speaker 1: was to inhale dried material from a smallpox lesion or 131 00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:58,880 Speaker 1: a crushed up smallpox gab. Yeah, I know this sounds 132 00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:01,120 Speaker 1: just terrible. It's is like the sort of thing that 133 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:03,160 Speaker 1: we would hear about on saw bones that we keep 134 00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:06,080 Speaker 1: mentioning is is like a thing that's just a terrible idea, 135 00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:09,800 Speaker 1: but that actually worked. Yeah. After this exposure, the healthy 136 00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:12,320 Speaker 1: person would usually wind up with a case of smallpox 137 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:14,960 Speaker 1: that was less severe than if it had been caught naturally. 138 00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:17,040 Speaker 1: So you can see where there would be a certain 139 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:20,280 Speaker 1: appeal to this concept like I will at least control 140 00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:22,880 Speaker 1: my exposure and hopefully get a mild version rather than 141 00:08:22,920 --> 00:08:25,640 Speaker 1: just cross my fingers and wait for the really horrible 142 00:08:25,880 --> 00:08:29,280 Speaker 1: yeah case of smallpox, to wait for disfigurement, blindness, and death. 143 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:34,960 Speaker 1: This practice became known as both inoculation and vary elation. 144 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:38,080 Speaker 1: So inoculation is from a Latin word meaning to graft 145 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:41,320 Speaker 1: or to implant, so think of like grafting a bud 146 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:45,400 Speaker 1: from one tree to another. Vary Elation comes from variola, 147 00:08:45,480 --> 00:08:48,079 Speaker 1: which is the name for the virus that causes smallpox, 148 00:08:48,559 --> 00:08:52,440 Speaker 1: and then bariola comes from Latin words meaning spots or pimples. 149 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:56,240 Speaker 1: And the practice of variolation spread first through India, China, 150 00:08:56,280 --> 00:08:59,400 Speaker 1: and Africa, and by the eighteenth century it had made 151 00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:01,600 Speaker 1: its way to your up as well. It was slow 152 00:09:01,640 --> 00:09:04,600 Speaker 1: to catch on though, uh In the early eighteenth century, 153 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:08,600 Speaker 1: Edward Wortley Montague was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and 154 00:09:08,640 --> 00:09:12,400 Speaker 1: while he was there, his wife, Lady Mary Worley Montague, 155 00:09:12,520 --> 00:09:15,240 Speaker 1: whose face had been scarred from her own bout of smallpox, 156 00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:19,559 Speaker 1: learned about variolation. But in seventeen eighteen she ordered the 157 00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:24,520 Speaker 1: embassy surgeon to perform variolation on her son. This procedure 158 00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:27,960 Speaker 1: was successful and she had her daughter inoculated in seventeen 159 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:31,680 Speaker 1: twenty one. After they got back to London. The medical 160 00:09:31,760 --> 00:09:34,520 Speaker 1: community in England was not too sure about all this, 161 00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:38,560 Speaker 1: so naturally the next people who are very elated were prisoners. 162 00:09:39,240 --> 00:09:42,199 Speaker 1: We have discussed in previous podcasts that there are times 163 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:45,559 Speaker 1: when people say it's not so much risk to use 164 00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:48,800 Speaker 1: a prisoner or a criminal, let's just put them at risk. Yeah, 165 00:09:48,800 --> 00:09:52,120 Speaker 1: there there are many ethical considerations in the history of 166 00:09:52,160 --> 00:09:56,640 Speaker 1: small box but from the air and some successful experimentation, 167 00:09:57,000 --> 00:09:59,800 Speaker 1: the practice spread through the English aristocracy and into the 168 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:03,880 Speaker 1: of Europe. Vary elation made its way to the America's 169 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:08,960 Speaker 1: shortly thereafter. Reverend Cotton Mather and doctor Zabdiel Boylston used 170 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:12,000 Speaker 1: it to try to curb a smallpox epidemic in Boston 171 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:18,560 Speaker 1: in sevente About half of Boston's population got the UH 172 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:23,040 Speaker 1: got the virus. During this outbreak. About fourteen percent of 173 00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:26,120 Speaker 1: those who got it naturally died, and that compared to 174 00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:28,559 Speaker 1: two percent of the people who had been very elated. 175 00:10:29,280 --> 00:10:33,160 Speaker 1: So Mather and Boylston documented all of their progress and 176 00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:36,400 Speaker 1: with these results that showed that it was overall of success. 177 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:40,280 Speaker 1: You know, varry relating people was way less deadly than 178 00:10:40,320 --> 00:10:44,440 Speaker 1: getting smallpox. Naturally, the practice started to become more common 179 00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:48,480 Speaker 1: on both sides of the Atlantic, and vary elation worked, 180 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:51,920 Speaker 1: but it was not foolproof. People still died, as we 181 00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:56,640 Speaker 1: just mentioned, and survivors uh still had scars after they recovered. 182 00:10:57,320 --> 00:11:01,120 Speaker 1: Sometimes a very elated patient would spread smallpox to other people, 183 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:06,440 Speaker 1: accidentally causing an outbreak anyway, and other diseases like syphilis, hepatitis, 184 00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:09,559 Speaker 1: and scrawpula, which is usually caused by the same bacterium 185 00:11:09,640 --> 00:11:13,400 Speaker 1: that causes tuberculosis, could also be transmitted during this very 186 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:18,839 Speaker 1: elation process. Overall, varilation was about eighty percent effective and 187 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:21,280 Speaker 1: it had a two percent mortality rate, so it was 188 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:24,880 Speaker 1: better than getting smallpox the normal way, but there was 189 00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:27,880 Speaker 1: still a lot of room for improvement, and that leads 190 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:31,120 Speaker 1: us to Edward Jenner. He was born on May seventeen, 191 00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:35,440 Speaker 1: seventeen forty nine, in Barkley, Gloucestershire. He was the eighth 192 00:11:35,480 --> 00:11:37,719 Speaker 1: of nine children, and he went to live with his 193 00:11:37,880 --> 00:11:41,000 Speaker 1: brother after being orphaned at the age of five. In 194 00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:43,280 Speaker 1: seventeen fifty seven, when he was eight years old, he 195 00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:47,120 Speaker 1: was inoculated for smallpox He started an apprenticeship when he 196 00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:49,760 Speaker 1: was in his early teens, working with a surgeon and 197 00:11:49,800 --> 00:11:54,240 Speaker 1: apothecary named Daniel Ludlow. He was Lidlow's apprentice for several years, 198 00:11:54,400 --> 00:11:56,599 Speaker 1: and as the story goes, it was while there that 199 00:11:56,720 --> 00:11:59,520 Speaker 1: he heard a dairymaid say that she would never get 200 00:11:59,559 --> 00:12:03,120 Speaker 1: small box because she had had cow pox. Cow Pox, 201 00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:06,480 Speaker 1: like smallpox, is a virus. Cows get it and it 202 00:12:06,559 --> 00:12:09,640 Speaker 1: causes them to get these sores on their utters. People 203 00:12:09,679 --> 00:12:11,679 Speaker 1: who came in contact with these sores while they were 204 00:12:11,760 --> 00:12:14,240 Speaker 1: milking could get cow pox from the cow, and it 205 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:17,000 Speaker 1: would cause similar sores on their hands and lower arms. 206 00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:20,680 Speaker 1: This was normally a really mild disease, and the idea 207 00:12:20,800 --> 00:12:23,240 Speaker 1: that someone who had had cow pox before would not 208 00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:28,520 Speaker 1: also get smallpox was either conventional wisdom or country superstition, 209 00:12:28,679 --> 00:12:31,599 Speaker 1: depending on who you asked. And in addition to all that, 210 00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:36,960 Speaker 1: milkmaids were reputed to have extremely beautiful complexions. They are 211 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:40,239 Speaker 1: the subjects of poems because of their lovely skin, presumably 212 00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:43,439 Speaker 1: because none of them had smallpox. Cars Jenner continued to 213 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:46,920 Speaker 1: study medicine and surgery for the next several years, apprenticing 214 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:50,200 Speaker 1: with George Hardwick in seventeen sixty four and with John 215 00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:53,200 Speaker 1: Hunter at St. George's Hospital in London after he turned 216 00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:56,160 Speaker 1: twenty one. And in addition to his interest in medicine, 217 00:12:56,840 --> 00:12:59,440 Speaker 1: uh Jenner was also adept at other areas of science. 218 00:12:59,640 --> 00:13:03,040 Speaker 1: He studied and observed animals, he collected fossils, and he 219 00:13:03,120 --> 00:13:07,480 Speaker 1: helped classify newly documented specimens. He also something of a 220 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:10,600 Speaker 1: renaissance man, liked to play the violin and write poems. 221 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:13,880 Speaker 1: And as we have in a practice we have alluded 222 00:13:13,880 --> 00:13:16,440 Speaker 1: to previously in a recent episode, he was a balloonist, 223 00:13:16,760 --> 00:13:19,920 Speaker 1: and he built and flew his own hydrogen balloon. Ballooning 224 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:22,319 Speaker 1: was all the rage at this point, uh And in 225 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:26,319 Speaker 1: sev he decided to try and experiment, building off the 226 00:13:26,400 --> 00:13:30,560 Speaker 1: idea that cow pox granted immunity from smallpox. What if, 227 00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,560 Speaker 1: as with vary elation, you could deliberately give someone cow pox. 228 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:38,760 Speaker 1: So a dairy maid named Sarah Elms came to see 229 00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:41,280 Speaker 1: Jenner about the sore that she had on her hand, 230 00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:45,760 Speaker 1: and he examined her, said it looked like cow pox, 231 00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:47,959 Speaker 1: and she confirmed that one of the cows that she 232 00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:51,800 Speaker 1: milked had recently had cow pox, and the cow that 233 00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:56,520 Speaker 1: gave Sarah smallpox was named Blossom. Blossom skin is actually 234 00:13:56,600 --> 00:13:59,520 Speaker 1: on display in the University of London Library at St 235 00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:04,360 Speaker 1: George's Hospital. It was removed for restoration in and replaced 236 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:09,319 Speaker 1: in August. Uh She was a Gloucester cow, which has 237 00:14:09,400 --> 00:14:11,679 Speaker 1: horns in both the males and the females, which is 238 00:14:11,720 --> 00:14:13,839 Speaker 1: why if you see the pictures of the skin, it 239 00:14:13,920 --> 00:14:16,120 Speaker 1: has horns on it, which some people who are not 240 00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:20,560 Speaker 1: used to seeing female cows with horns maybe confusing. Yeah, 241 00:14:20,680 --> 00:14:22,800 Speaker 1: I think it's kind of darling that her name was Blossom, 242 00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:25,600 Speaker 1: and a little morbid that our skin is still on 243 00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:30,720 Speaker 1: display in a museum. It's such a wonderfully morbid thing. 244 00:14:37,680 --> 00:14:41,960 Speaker 1: So Jenner extracted material from this sword and he used 245 00:14:42,040 --> 00:14:45,120 Speaker 1: it to inoculate an eight year old boy named James Phipps, 246 00:14:45,320 --> 00:14:48,720 Speaker 1: and he was the son of Jenner's gardener. So what 247 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:51,320 Speaker 1: he did was he scratched James's arm and he rubbed 248 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:55,400 Speaker 1: the material from Sarah's sore into it. James went through 249 00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:58,920 Speaker 1: a range of mild flu like symptoms and then he recovered. 250 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:03,520 Speaker 1: A couple of months later, Jenner inoculated James again, this 251 00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:07,560 Speaker 1: time with fresh material from a smallpox sore. When James 252 00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:10,960 Speaker 1: didn't get smallpox. Jenner concluded that his experiment was in 253 00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:14,600 Speaker 1: fact a success. He decided to call his method vaccination, 254 00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:17,520 Speaker 1: from the Latin words for cow and cow pox. So 255 00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:21,120 Speaker 1: before we talk about how this wound up radically changing 256 00:15:21,160 --> 00:15:23,560 Speaker 1: the world, we would be remiss if we didn't talk 257 00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:25,560 Speaker 1: about some of the other people who had come to 258 00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:28,400 Speaker 1: the same conclusion at about the same time. Twenty two 259 00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:32,440 Speaker 1: years earlier, an affluent tenant farmer named Benjamin Jesti had 260 00:15:32,520 --> 00:15:35,280 Speaker 1: performed this same basic procedure on his wife and his 261 00:15:35,400 --> 00:15:38,640 Speaker 1: two sons during a smallpox outbreak in their area. He 262 00:15:38,680 --> 00:15:41,120 Speaker 1: had gotten the idea because he and two of his 263 00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:44,200 Speaker 1: milk maids had all had cow pox before, and neither 264 00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:46,360 Speaker 1: none of them had ever gotten smallpox in spite of 265 00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:50,120 Speaker 1: being exposed to it repeatedly. Jest took his wife and 266 00:15:50,160 --> 00:15:53,320 Speaker 1: two children to a field where some cows were infected 267 00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:56,240 Speaker 1: with cow pox, and he used a stalking needle to 268 00:15:56,360 --> 00:15:59,560 Speaker 1: transfer some material from the cow sores to their arms 269 00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:03,160 Speaker 1: his wife are. His wife's arm became infected and she 270 00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:06,400 Speaker 1: almost lost it, but all three of his family members 271 00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:09,680 Speaker 1: came through the outbreak without being infected. His sons were 272 00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:13,200 Speaker 1: inoculated with smallpox later on and had no reaction, and 273 00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:17,200 Speaker 1: they were all exposed to smallpox multiple times afterwards got 274 00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:21,800 Speaker 1: it despite the arm infection. It was a successful, though 275 00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:26,840 Speaker 1: unsettling operation. Yes, and Jesty was the target of all 276 00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:29,880 Speaker 1: kinds of derision and scorn in his community because of 277 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:33,280 Speaker 1: what he had done, and while word did spread of 278 00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:36,360 Speaker 1: his actions in the local medical community, there's no written 279 00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:39,920 Speaker 1: evidence that Jenner ever heard about it. A schoolmaster named 280 00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:43,920 Speaker 1: Peter Plett also put cowpox to similar use in Holstein, Germany, 281 00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:49,120 Speaker 1: in using material from a cow on his employers two daughters. 282 00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:52,200 Speaker 1: They were the only children to survive an epidemic that 283 00:16:52,280 --> 00:16:55,120 Speaker 1: struck three years later, but one of them also had 284 00:16:55,160 --> 00:16:57,800 Speaker 1: a strong enough reaction when he did this experiment that 285 00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:00,880 Speaker 1: he didn't go further with the idea. A third man, 286 00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:04,680 Speaker 1: John Fuster, was a very elation practitioner, and in seventeen 287 00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:08,400 Speaker 1: sixty three he very related two brothers, and one of them, 288 00:17:08,560 --> 00:17:11,320 Speaker 1: who turned out to have had cow pox before, didn't 289 00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:15,480 Speaker 1: have any reaction, So his brother got smallpox in a 290 00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:19,960 Speaker 1: mild form, but nothing happened to him. So consequently Fuster 291 00:17:20,119 --> 00:17:23,040 Speaker 1: wondered if cow pox might prevent smallpox, and he wrote 292 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,119 Speaker 1: a paper on the idea that he never published. He 293 00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:29,639 Speaker 1: made some attempts at inoculating people with cow pox at 294 00:17:29,800 --> 00:17:33,120 Speaker 1: roughly the same time as Jenner made his first attempts, 295 00:17:33,119 --> 00:17:36,000 Speaker 1: although it's really unclear as to whether he and Jenner, 296 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:39,320 Speaker 1: who did know each other, ever talked about it. So 297 00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:42,399 Speaker 1: then we sort of get to the question of what 298 00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:45,879 Speaker 1: separates Jenner from these men and what earned him the 299 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:49,320 Speaker 1: nickname of Father of immunology, And it's that he made 300 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:52,399 Speaker 1: vaccination his life's work. Yeah, there have been several articles 301 00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:54,159 Speaker 1: that have come out in the last ten or fifteen 302 00:17:54,240 --> 00:17:56,680 Speaker 1: years that are sort of like, Jenner doesn't deserve this title. 303 00:17:56,760 --> 00:17:58,920 Speaker 1: So and So did it twenty years before he did. 304 00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:02,520 Speaker 1: And while it is true that he wasn't the first 305 00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:06,520 Speaker 1: person ever in history to try this thing, he absolutely 306 00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:11,760 Speaker 1: devoted himself to trying to uh to protect as many 307 00:18:11,800 --> 00:18:14,359 Speaker 1: people as possible from smallpox using cow pox from this 308 00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:17,360 Speaker 1: point on, so much so that his other medical practice 309 00:18:17,359 --> 00:18:20,359 Speaker 1: actually started to suffer. The first thing that he did 310 00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:22,720 Speaker 1: was that he submitted a paper to the Royal Society 311 00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:26,639 Speaker 1: in but it was rejected and he got a note 312 00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:29,600 Speaker 1: from the society's president that he really should be concerned 313 00:18:29,600 --> 00:18:35,080 Speaker 1: about his reputation so taking that into consideration, he repeated 314 00:18:35,160 --> 00:18:37,399 Speaker 1: his experiment a few times, and then he wrote up 315 00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:40,400 Speaker 1: an inquiry into the causes and effects of the very 316 00:18:40,520 --> 00:18:43,320 Speaker 1: La vaccinate, a disease discovered in some of the western 317 00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:47,160 Speaker 1: counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and known by the name 318 00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:50,000 Speaker 1: of cow pox, which is a lengthy title for a paper. 319 00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:52,639 Speaker 1: I love the lengthy paper titles. You can read this 320 00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:55,920 Speaker 1: one online for free. Yeah, And that paper detailed his 321 00:18:56,040 --> 00:18:59,119 Speaker 1: theories about the origins of cow pox. He thought it 322 00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:02,520 Speaker 1: came from a horse ailment which is casually called Greece, 323 00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:05,600 Speaker 1: which was later disproved, and he listed a number of 324 00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:09,680 Speaker 1: case studies involving cow pox and smallpox immunity. He published 325 00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:13,000 Speaker 1: this paper, financing it himself the next year. So the 326 00:19:13,119 --> 00:19:16,920 Speaker 1: response to his publication and his ongoing vaccination work was 327 00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:20,720 Speaker 1: mixed at best. People were really reluctant to believe that 328 00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:24,200 Speaker 1: what he was proposing could work. Cow Pox was also 329 00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:28,280 Speaker 1: not a really prevalent illness, especially in towns and cities, 330 00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:30,080 Speaker 1: which made it kind of hard to get the material 331 00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:33,280 Speaker 1: people needed to make vaccinations. Uh. One of the things 332 00:19:33,359 --> 00:19:36,280 Speaker 1: about vary elation was that there was smallpox everywhere. You 333 00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:40,200 Speaker 1: could easily get smallpox to inoculate other people with. Not 334 00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:44,760 Speaker 1: so much so with cow pox, because precautions like hand 335 00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:49,240 Speaker 1: washing and sterilization we're not being used yet. Sometimes cow 336 00:19:49,359 --> 00:19:53,520 Speaker 1: pox vaccines would become adulterated with smallpox through cross contamination 337 00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:56,040 Speaker 1: that would make it look like a person had gotten 338 00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:59,760 Speaker 1: smallpox from their cow pox vaccine. And people who made 339 00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:02,879 Speaker 1: mo the off of variolation who were super opposed to 340 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:06,040 Speaker 1: Jenner's idea, as you can imagine, that would be a 341 00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:11,479 Speaker 1: natural response. People also objected to vaccination on religious grounds 342 00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:14,159 Speaker 1: or because they believe that cows were lesser than humans 343 00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:17,640 Speaker 1: and so that humans should not be contaminated with material 344 00:20:17,760 --> 00:20:21,399 Speaker 1: from cows. Clergy would speak against the idea of quote 345 00:20:21,440 --> 00:20:25,240 Speaker 1: contaminating humans with a substance from a sick animal. The 346 00:20:25,359 --> 00:20:29,440 Speaker 1: Anti Vaccine Society published a satirical cartoon called the cow 347 00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:33,200 Speaker 1: poc or The Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation, And 348 00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:35,359 Speaker 1: this was a drawing of a group of people all 349 00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:38,360 Speaker 1: being vaccinated and they were all growing cow heads out 350 00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:42,640 Speaker 1: of their bodies. This was drawn by British satirist James Gilray. 351 00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:46,680 Speaker 1: A year after Jenner had published his pamphlet, he conducted 352 00:20:46,720 --> 00:20:49,840 Speaker 1: a survey to try to conclusively prove that cow pox 353 00:20:49,880 --> 00:20:53,920 Speaker 1: did in fact confer smallpox immunity. Only once that was done, 354 00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:56,440 Speaker 1: with the answer being a pretty decisive yes, it does 355 00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:01,240 Speaker 1: in fact confer smallpox immunity, did vaccination gradually begin to 356 00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:03,879 Speaker 1: gain acceptance. And we're going to talk about how this 357 00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:06,080 Speaker 1: changed the world in a minute, But first we're gonna 358 00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:09,600 Speaker 1: talk about Jenner's personal life before we get to that point. 359 00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:12,320 Speaker 1: So it's a lot of what really was successful happened 360 00:21:12,359 --> 00:21:15,399 Speaker 1: after he died in seventeen eighty eight. He got married 361 00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:18,680 Speaker 1: and he eventually had four children. He built a cottage 362 00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,320 Speaker 1: in the garden where he would give free vaccinations to 363 00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:24,080 Speaker 1: poor children, and he called this the Temple of Vaccinia. 364 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:27,680 Speaker 1: Jenner would give vaccine to anybody who asked him for 365 00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:31,000 Speaker 1: it for free, so the actual vaccination work was carried 366 00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:34,520 Speaker 1: out by many other people. He started to call himself 367 00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:37,679 Speaker 1: the vaccine Clerk to the world, and he developed new 368 00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:41,080 Speaker 1: ways to collect and preserve cowpox material for the vaccines. 369 00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:44,440 Speaker 1: Jenner put so much effort into vaccination that his own 370 00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:48,080 Speaker 1: medical practice, as Tracy mentioned earlier, really started to fail. 371 00:21:48,760 --> 00:21:52,760 Speaker 1: Around the start of the nineteenth century. Jenner gradually started 372 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:55,879 Speaker 1: to pull away from public life. His work had drawn 373 00:21:56,040 --> 00:21:58,959 Speaker 1: huge praise, but it had also gotten a whole lot 374 00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,119 Speaker 1: of judgment and school worn from people who feared what 375 00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:06,360 Speaker 1: he was doing or questioned his practices. He received quite 376 00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:08,880 Speaker 1: a number of awards and honors for his work, including 377 00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:12,720 Speaker 1: several honorary degrees, and he received a medal from Napoleon 378 00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,240 Speaker 1: in eighteen o four, and Napoleon so respected him that 379 00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:19,120 Speaker 1: he was able to negotiate the release of British prisoners 380 00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:23,199 Speaker 1: of war during the Napoleonic Wars. Statues have been erected 381 00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:27,480 Speaker 1: in Jenner's honor all over the world. Parliament granted Jenner 382 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:31,160 Speaker 1: ten thousand pounds in eighteen o two for his vaccination work, 383 00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:34,400 Speaker 1: and that was followed by another twenty thousand pounds five 384 00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:39,080 Speaker 1: years later, and this is millions of today's dollars. Vaccination 385 00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:43,600 Speaker 1: gradually started to overtake variolation in popularity, and in eighteen 386 00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:48,919 Speaker 1: forty England prohibited variolation outright, since vaccination was had at 387 00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,960 Speaker 1: this point proved to be much safer, and this sparked 388 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,240 Speaker 1: protests from people who objected to vaccination for one reason 389 00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:58,480 Speaker 1: or another and wanted to have variolation available as a 390 00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:02,720 Speaker 1: choice Tryically, although Jenner did so much work to stop 391 00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:06,680 Speaker 1: the spread of smallpox, at the time, tuberculosis was still 392 00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:10,280 Speaker 1: a very common and deadly illness, and it also was 393 00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:14,359 Speaker 1: not particularly treatable. He lost his oldest son to tuberculosis 394 00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:17,240 Speaker 1: in eighteen ten and his wife in eighteen fifteen, and 395 00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:20,960 Speaker 1: he had other deaths in his family in the intervening years. 396 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,600 Speaker 1: Edward Jenner did not, as was his custom, come down 397 00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:29,040 Speaker 1: for breakfast on January eighteen three, and he was found 398 00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:32,480 Speaker 1: in his room having had a massive stroke. He died 399 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:44,919 Speaker 1: shortly thereafter, on January of eight So now let's get 400 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:49,920 Speaker 1: back to how really the groundwork that Edward Jenner laid 401 00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:54,880 Speaker 1: actually changed the world. Yeah, as we mentioned before, although 402 00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:57,600 Speaker 1: other people had made the same discovery that Jenner did, 403 00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:01,000 Speaker 1: and even earlier than he had, it was still Jenner's 404 00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,880 Speaker 1: tireless work that really started the world on a path 405 00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:08,000 Speaker 1: to eradicating smallpox. It is, at least as of when 406 00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:10,760 Speaker 1: we are recording this, the only disease that mankind has 407 00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:14,480 Speaker 1: eradicated from the planet. Uh currently, the only samples of 408 00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:19,040 Speaker 1: it that remain are in laboratories. Vaccination was pretty prevalent 409 00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:22,639 Speaker 1: in Europe by eighteen hundred in eighteen oh three and 410 00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:25,159 Speaker 1: really just one of my favorite stories that maybe we 411 00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:29,160 Speaker 1: will do a whole episode on later. Francisco Xavier to Balmas, 412 00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,159 Speaker 1: acting on behalf of King Charles the Fourth, started an 413 00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:35,960 Speaker 1: expedition from Spain to South America via the Canary Islands, 414 00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,360 Speaker 1: and the goal of this expedition was to deliver vaccine 415 00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:44,000 Speaker 1: to South America and Asia. So at this point, the 416 00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:47,480 Speaker 1: preservation methods that were used to uh to make the 417 00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:50,600 Speaker 1: vaccine just they couldn't keep it potent over such a 418 00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:54,560 Speaker 1: long and hot voyage. So they had to come up 419 00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:56,800 Speaker 1: with a different method, which was that they rounded up 420 00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:59,840 Speaker 1: twenty two orphans who had never had cowpox or small 421 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,640 Speaker 1: box and used them as a chain of human carriers 422 00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:06,359 Speaker 1: to allow the vaccine to reach the Caribbean. There are 423 00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:11,800 Speaker 1: many ethical implication implications of this process, simultaneously ingenious and 424 00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:15,720 Speaker 1: the little spine chilling. Yeah. So basically they would, you know, 425 00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:19,480 Speaker 1: infect one person before the voyage started and then pass 426 00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:22,680 Speaker 1: it from person to person as they crossed the sea. 427 00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:26,840 Speaker 1: So so many moral layers to what we were talking about. 428 00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,440 Speaker 1: I cannot even scratch the surface of it with my 429 00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:37,240 Speaker 1: my pitiful moral attempts. But In eighteen o seven, Bavarians 430 00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:40,760 Speaker 1: became the first to require military recruits to be vaccinated 431 00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:43,960 Speaker 1: for smallpox, since troop movements had always been a major 432 00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,400 Speaker 1: factor in the spread of the disease. In eighteen fifty three, 433 00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:52,680 Speaker 1: England made smallpox vaccination compulsory. Other nations followed suit, and 434 00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:56,240 Speaker 1: the rate of smallpox infection really dramatically started to drop. 435 00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,400 Speaker 1: Resistance to vaccines continued to grow as more nation began 436 00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:03,840 Speaker 1: to require it. Nobel Prize winning writer George Bernard Shaw, 437 00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,080 Speaker 1: who caught smallpox in eighty one in spite of having 438 00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:11,359 Speaker 1: been vaccinated as a baby, called vaccination quote a peculiarly 439 00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:15,200 Speaker 1: filthy piece of witchcraft. Jenner had thought the protection granted 440 00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:18,480 Speaker 1: by childhood vaccination would last forever, but that turned out 441 00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:22,160 Speaker 1: to not be the case. And really there were some real, 442 00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:27,480 Speaker 1: verifiable problems with the earliest vaccines because of the state 443 00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,040 Speaker 1: of medical knowledge at the time. They simply were not 444 00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,040 Speaker 1: being made or given in a way that was sterile 445 00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:36,200 Speaker 1: or safe. There was no quality control, there was no 446 00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:38,720 Speaker 1: method of standardizing how much of the virus a person 447 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,840 Speaker 1: got with any given vaccination. Plus, the first vaccinations were 448 00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,679 Speaker 1: often as the case was with the orphans who were 449 00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,160 Speaker 1: crossing the notion they were made from arm to arm, 450 00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,080 Speaker 1: from person to person, and that would spread disease from 451 00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,560 Speaker 1: the first person or wherever on down the line. It 452 00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,959 Speaker 1: wasn't until the eighteen forties that people started instead passing 453 00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:01,120 Speaker 1: the infection from cows to cows and then mass producing 454 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:05,040 Speaker 1: the vaccine from cow material only, which did cut down 455 00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:08,000 Speaker 1: on some of the related blood borne infections that could 456 00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:12,600 Speaker 1: be passed along. And unfortunately, Jenner's record also was not perfect. 457 00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:16,679 Speaker 1: Some of his conclusions, including the connection to the grease 458 00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:19,800 Speaker 1: disease and horses and the idea that immunity was permanent, 459 00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:23,320 Speaker 1: proved to be false during his lifetime. He had also 460 00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:26,080 Speaker 1: written a study on the behavior of newly hatched cuckoo 461 00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,600 Speaker 1: birds that was correct, but wasn't proved to be so 462 00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:32,879 Speaker 1: until many years later. So people disbelieved his conclusions and 463 00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:35,720 Speaker 1: used that as another strike against him. Basically, he said, 464 00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,760 Speaker 1: you were wrong about this, and it was to just 465 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,000 Speaker 1: kind of their argument. Father. It wasn't even just that 466 00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:43,960 Speaker 1: he was wrong. What he had what he had proven 467 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:48,760 Speaker 1: was basically that that newly hatched cuckoo's will throw the 468 00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:50,800 Speaker 1: other eggs and the other hatchlings out of the nest 469 00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,000 Speaker 1: and everybody thought they were not physically capable of doing that. 470 00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:55,920 Speaker 1: And so it was not only that they were like 471 00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,680 Speaker 1: you're wrong, Like you're wrong, and that's ridiculous, but in fact, 472 00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,240 Speaker 1: gooser jerks, cuckoos are jerks, and they do that for real, 473 00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,520 Speaker 1: and he had watched them do it with his own eyes. Yeah. 474 00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,960 Speaker 1: But basically anything that he said or published that turned 475 00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:11,680 Speaker 1: out to be wrong or was believed to be wrong 476 00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:15,040 Speaker 1: and not proven until later really became fuel for the 477 00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,800 Speaker 1: anti vaccination fire. Another big log on that fire was 478 00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,040 Speaker 1: that although he had many years of medical training, he 479 00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:25,119 Speaker 1: hadn't passed any kind of comprehensive medical exam when he 480 00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:29,000 Speaker 1: started doing his immunization work. Those weren't compulsory when he 481 00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:31,600 Speaker 1: went through his training, and the fact that he hadn't 482 00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,680 Speaker 1: passed the equivalent of the boards became this huge bone 483 00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:39,040 Speaker 1: of contention, and some people just thought the vaccination wasn't necessary. 484 00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:41,920 Speaker 1: They claimed that the rate of smallpox decline was really 485 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:46,000 Speaker 1: just because of improvements in general sanitation and hygiene. As 486 00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,040 Speaker 1: the rate dropped, which meant that people felt less threatened 487 00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:52,560 Speaker 1: by smallpox on a day to day basis, objection to 488 00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:57,240 Speaker 1: vaccination became more and more vehement. Patent medicine pushers and 489 00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:01,360 Speaker 1: other clacks also started to deliberately spread anti vaccine sentiments 490 00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:04,240 Speaker 1: as those practices started to grow in the eighteen hundreds. 491 00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,480 Speaker 1: And there are some legitimate ethical issues that surround vaccination, 492 00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,600 Speaker 1: you know, some of which we've talked about before earlier 493 00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,480 Speaker 1: in this podcast. Compulsory vaccination was viewed as wealthy people 494 00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:18,960 Speaker 1: invading the privacy of poorer people and robbing of them 495 00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:21,920 Speaker 1: of their freedom of choice. And some nations there were 496 00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:26,960 Speaker 1: layers and layers and layers of entangled religious and ethical considerations. 497 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,240 Speaker 1: In India, for example, there was the fact that the 498 00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:34,240 Speaker 1: vaccine came from cows, which was symbolically sacred to many Hindus. 499 00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,000 Speaker 1: The vaccine was also being passed from person to person 500 00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,640 Speaker 1: through a society that had a really rigid cast system, 501 00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,040 Speaker 1: and the whole thing was wrapped up under this umbrella 502 00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:49,000 Speaker 1: of British colonialism. So as with the chain of human 503 00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:53,000 Speaker 1: orphan carriers, that's a whole lot of moral and ethical 504 00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:56,440 Speaker 1: discussion to try to unpack. Yeah, it's really problematic, and 505 00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:00,080 Speaker 1: regardless of all of these considerations, the end result was 506 00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,000 Speaker 1: the only time ever in human history that a contagious 507 00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:06,040 Speaker 1: disease had been eradicated through the efforts of human beings, 508 00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:10,720 Speaker 1: so that almost adds another like dicey layer of people 509 00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,040 Speaker 1: being able to say, well, the end justifies the means. 510 00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:16,320 Speaker 1: But then there was also some mythical weirdness along the way. Right, 511 00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,520 Speaker 1: it becomes a really complicated issue. Smallpox was eradicated in 512 00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:23,360 Speaker 1: most of Europe and North America by the nineteen fifties, 513 00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,440 Speaker 1: but it was still really prevalent in many other parts 514 00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,240 Speaker 1: of the world at that point. In nineteen sixty seven, 515 00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:33,360 Speaker 1: the World Health Organizations spearheaded a global vaccination effort, which 516 00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,200 Speaker 1: was met with a lot of skepticism. The vaccine and 517 00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:39,360 Speaker 1: use at this point was freeze dried. It was generally 518 00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:43,000 Speaker 1: made from animal lymph, and it was made too much, 519 00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,000 Speaker 1: much much higher standards of quality control and purity and 520 00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:51,600 Speaker 1: sanitation and everything else than what was around in Jenner's time. 521 00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:54,520 Speaker 1: We were not just extracting material from sores and sticking 522 00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:59,240 Speaker 1: it into people anymore, which is still so the grossest 523 00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,560 Speaker 1: thing usually the wiggles uh. In some regions, the goal 524 00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:05,760 Speaker 1: was to vaccinate everyone, but when that wasn't possible, they 525 00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,600 Speaker 1: turned to a method that was known as ring vaccination, 526 00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:13,480 Speaker 1: since smallpox spreads through close contact rather than casual contacts, 527 00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:15,720 Speaker 1: so you'd get it from living in the same house 528 00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,480 Speaker 1: with someone, but not from walking past an infected person 529 00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,720 Speaker 1: on the street. Uh. The focus was on vaccinating people 530 00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,960 Speaker 1: who came into close contact with someone who had been exposed. 531 00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,800 Speaker 1: So getting a vaccine within three days of exposure dramatically 532 00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:33,800 Speaker 1: decreases the likelihood of getting smallpox, or it enables you 533 00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:35,800 Speaker 1: to only get a very light case of it. Yeah, 534 00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,040 Speaker 1: So when there would be a reported case of smallpox, 535 00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:41,520 Speaker 1: they would sort of come and immunize everyone around that 536 00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:46,000 Speaker 1: person and cut off this one infection vector, uh from 537 00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:50,240 Speaker 1: spreading it to other people. Had there been multiple stable 538 00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:53,640 Speaker 1: strains of smallpox, which there weren't, just really just one 539 00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:57,040 Speaker 1: main one, or if it had also been carried by animals, 540 00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,560 Speaker 1: this whole eradication attempt would have been a lot more 541 00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:04,600 Speaker 1: difficult than it was. And The last occurrence of the 542 00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,960 Speaker 1: most serious form of smallpox, known as very ala major, 543 00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:12,479 Speaker 1: was in Bangladesh in nineteen seventy five. The last naturally 544 00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:16,280 Speaker 1: occurring case of smallpox was in Somalia in nineteen seventy seven, 545 00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,640 Speaker 1: and on May eighth of nineteen eighty the World Health 546 00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:23,280 Speaker 1: Organization declared that the world was now free of smallpox. 547 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,320 Speaker 1: Like we said, first and only time ever for that 548 00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,440 Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah, there have been some diseases that have 549 00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:32,360 Speaker 1: kind of faded from history thanks to changes in diet 550 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:35,280 Speaker 1: and sanitation and that kind of thing. So there are 551 00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:37,640 Speaker 1: diseases that used to be common that really aren't anymore. 552 00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:39,800 Speaker 1: But this is really the only time that people have 553 00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:41,680 Speaker 1: said we are going to get rid of this disease 554 00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:45,240 Speaker 1: and then did it. There there are some others that 555 00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:47,160 Speaker 1: are getting kind of close to that point now, but 556 00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:52,120 Speaker 1: as of right now, um, which is October, smallpox is 557 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,280 Speaker 1: the only one, although it's been eradicated and you know, 558 00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,600 Speaker 1: you cannot generally get it from another person unless that 559 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:00,880 Speaker 1: person has been infected in some kind of lab accident. 560 00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:05,320 Speaker 1: There are many nations that maintain a stockpile of smallpox 561 00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:09,040 Speaker 1: vaccine in case of a biological weapon attack using smallpox. 562 00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:12,760 Speaker 1: Right now, the only known smallpox virus samples still in 563 00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:15,760 Speaker 1: existence are in laboratories in the United States and Russia, 564 00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:18,840 Speaker 1: and every once in a while, uh, everybody involved kind 565 00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,160 Speaker 1: of ree visits the idea about whether we should destroy 566 00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:25,960 Speaker 1: those and the most recent conversations I've seen about it 567 00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:30,040 Speaker 1: are from twenty eleven. Um that like there had been. Yes, 568 00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,680 Speaker 1: we are destroying them as far back as in the eighties, 569 00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:36,040 Speaker 1: but they're still around. Um and the most recent conversations 570 00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:39,480 Speaker 1: about it. The recommendation is, you know, there might actually 571 00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:42,720 Speaker 1: be a need for us to have intact uh samples 572 00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:45,480 Speaker 1: of the original virus if there were something like a 573 00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:50,560 Speaker 1: terror attacked using smallpox. So that remains to be discussed 574 00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:55,520 Speaker 1: for a long time. I think yeah, probably underlock and key. Uh. 575 00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:57,880 Speaker 1: And the home that Jenner had is today known as 576 00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:01,640 Speaker 1: the Edward Jenner Museum. You can visit it. You can 577 00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:05,760 Speaker 1: visit it and see the Temple of Vaccinia. I just 578 00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,200 Speaker 1: love they called it that. I do. It's sort of cute. 579 00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:13,480 Speaker 1: So yes, uh. We we got some questions about vaccination 580 00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:17,320 Speaker 1: after we talked about Elsa Lanchester and her mother not 581 00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,160 Speaker 1: wanting her to be vaccinated. Yeah, and that kind of 582 00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:22,920 Speaker 1: led me to what how did how did I knew 583 00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:25,719 Speaker 1: the basic story was about Jenner and counts Now I 584 00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:27,920 Speaker 1: know a lot more of it and how super gross 585 00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:31,600 Speaker 1: it was. We could have been way more graphic in 586 00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:34,360 Speaker 1: our language in this episode, and we mostly have not 587 00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:37,160 Speaker 1: been because I don't think I could stomach it. Yeah, 588 00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:38,799 Speaker 1: we're not trying to be gentle with you, We're trying 589 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,440 Speaker 1: to be gentle with us. Yes, I could probably stomach it. 590 00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:50,400 Speaker 1: But thank you so much for joining us for this 591 00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,719 Speaker 1: Saturday classic. Since this is out of the archive, if 592 00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,200 Speaker 1: you heard an email address or a Facebook U r 593 00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:58,799 Speaker 1: L or something similar during the course of the show, 594 00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:02,720 Speaker 1: that maybe absolete. Now, so here's our current contact information. 595 00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:06,000 Speaker 1: We are at History Podcasts, at how stuff works dot com, 596 00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:08,879 Speaker 1: and then we're at Missed in the History. All over 597 00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:13,040 Speaker 1: social media. That is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, 598 00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:19,360 Speaker 1: and Instagram. Thanks again for listening for more on this 599 00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:22,040 Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works 600 00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:22,480 Speaker 1: dot com.