The history of vaccine discoveries dates back to ancient China. And the history of immunization dates back to the slave trade. The skin of the Turkish slaves who were to be sold to the harem was incised and pus from smallpox blisters was introduced into the wound. This was to protect women from smallpox - a disease that took away beauty. Learn the stories behind the invention of vaccines for smallpox, rubella, tuberculosis, rabies and more.
How vaccines were invented?
To defeat the plague,of the strangest wayswere taken. In China, children were rubbed into the nasal mucosapowdered smallpox scabs , and in India, smallpox patients' clothes were put on orpus-contaminated needles were inserted . For protection against the plague, it was recommended to drink the "vinegar of the seven thieves". It was wine vinegar in which herbs were soaked for 12 days, incl. wormwood, rue, rosemary, sage. We now know that these areherbs with strong bactericidal properties.
Another way of protection against the plague air wasdrinking na umór . The method worked because an alcohol-saturated body is less susceptible to infections. But cruel methods of fighting serious diseases were also used. One of the methods of fighting rabies was burning the fragments of the body that had been bitten by the sick animal with iron.
Today, thanks to various vaccines , we protect humanity from 25 infectious diseases . Vaccinations are one of the most important he alth measures. One dollar spent on prophylaxis saves $ 150 in treatment.
Smallpox vaccine
Europe owes its first vaccinations against smallpox to a very modern woman at the beginning of the 18th century, Lady Mary Montagu. She was the wife of the British ambassador to Constantinople and, drawing on the experience of the Turks, in 1718 she ordered her son vaccinated against smallpox.
The boy had a fever for a few days but quickly recovered andnever got smallpox . After returning to England, Lady Mary became interested in the issue of vaccination of King George I, who, however, made the introduction of, as it was said at the time, a vaccination dependent on the results of a human experiment.
Two prisoners were selected for the gallows. They both emerged from this trial unscathed and were pardoned. This oriental methodvaccination quickly spread in Europe. Not only children of monarchs were vaccinated with it, but also children from orphanages. Prussian King Frederick the Great introducedvaccination recommendations for the whole countryand even issued an informative booklet. It did not contain a single Latin word and was written in plain, intelligible language. The vaccination method proposed by Mary Montagu was called variolization, from variola vera, or smallpox.
However, the smallpox vaccine had to wait until 1798, when Edward Jenner announced the results of his experiment. It consisted ofintroducing into the body of an 8-year-old boy(in 1796)of pus taken from the bladder on the hand of a woman infected with cowpox (cowpox).A year later, he gave the same boy material taken from a person suffering from smallpox.The child did not get sick , and Jenner received $ 30,000 from the House of Commons pounds of the prize, which was funded by the vaccination institute for the poor. But it wasn't until 1974 that the WHO declared a world completely free of smallpox. It happened after 178 years of immunization.
Rabies vaccine
The author of the vaccine is a Frenchman, prof. Louis Pasteur, who earlier (in 1885) developed effective vaccines for animals against swine anthrax and erysipelas. In those days, rabies was a highly feared disease. Pasteur, weakened by a stroke, decided to face this opponent. He carefully examined the course of the disease and concluded that rabies germs slowly traveled from the bite site to the brain and spinal cord. Only then do the symptoms of the disease appear. He experimented on animals with good results.
However, when in 1885 a boy who was severely bitten by a sick dog, for whom little could be done, was brought to his laboratory, he gave the boy 12 doses of the vaccine. Little Joseph recovered and the news made Pasteur's name famous. Branches of his institute began to emerge in the world. The second, after the Parisian one,was established in Warsawe and was led by the bacteriologist Odon Bujwid.
Tuberculosis vaccine
Pasteur's collaborator was Robert Koch, a German bacteriologist. Not only did he discover tuberculosis mycobacteria (later called Koch mycobacteria) in 1890, but he also developed a substance to combat them. Odo Bujwid called it tuberculin. The world went crazy because tuberculosis was taking a rich toll. Butthe first vaccine turned out to be a failure.
The work continued, and in 1921 Albert Calmette and Camil Guerin tried a vaccine they developed against tuberculosis, which they called BCG (Bacillus Calmett-Guerin). The vaccine began to be produced only after 13 years, because it took scientists so long to develop mycobacteria with reduced pathogenic properties. It is worth mentioning that in 1939, scientists confirmedthe high effectiveness of the BCG vaccine in the fight against leprosyin the tuberculin form.
Whooping cough and Di-Per-Te vaccine
In 1923, the Dane Thorwald Madsen presented the results of his work on the vaccine against whooping cough. The vaccine containeddead, whole cells of bacteria.Mass vaccination began in the USA in the 1940s. In Europe, vaccination began ten years later. At the end of the 1960s, Madsen's vaccine was replaced with the combination vaccine Di-Per-Te, or diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis.
Pig vaccine
Mumps is a dangerous disease for men because it often causes complications in the form of testicular inflammation. The first effective mumps vaccine was developed in 1948 by Franklin Enders. A year earlier, the scientist had grown the mumps virus ontissue culture from chicken embryosand after its subsequent modifications (passages) he obtained a weakened virus, from which he was createdlive vaccineagainst piggy.
Hepatitis vaccine
The late 1970s saw the development of two vaccines in the United States for the prevention of hepatitis A. The difference was that one contained live attenuated (inedible) viruses and the other killed. The first tests on humans were carried out in the 1980s, and in the early 1990s they entered into mass use. Scientists achieved another success in 1981, because they developed the first effective vaccine against hepatitis B. Taking both vaccines reduces the risk of infection by 92%.
Flu vaccine
An epidemic of flu called Spanish swept Europe in 1918-1919. It claimed 50 million lives. It wasn't until 1937 that Jonas Salk developed the first good flu vaccine. Its effectiveness (70%) could be tested during World War II by vaccinating American soldiers.
Rubella vaccine
At the end of the 1940s, a significantly greater number of children were observedwere born with severe malformations.The mothers of these children suffered from rubella during pregnancy. Scientists tied these facts together and in 1954 developed a suitable vaccine. To this day, it is the only effective way to prevent such complications.
Currently, rubella vaccination is mandatory for babies aged 13-14 months and as a dosereminder aged 10-11 years.1
Tetanus and diphtheria vaccine
The first records of the invention of a vaccine against tetanus and diphtheria appeared in 1890. Then Emil Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato published a paper in which they wrote: blood to neutralize the toxic substances produced by the tetanus bacteria ”. The authors further argued that the serum taken from the blood of an immunized animal has healing properties against a person suffering from diphtheria or tetanus.
The discovery wasa new way to fight infectious diseases.They tried their serum for the first time in 1891, giving it to a little girl who was judged to be hopeless but recovered. The developed preparations were called diphtheria serum and anti-tetanus serum. The latter proved to be extremely successfulin the trenches of World War I . The command of the German army ordered every wounded soldier to be vaccinated against tetanus, which certainly saved their lives. Over the years, the serums were improved and gave longer and longer resistance.
In 1910, Emil Behring developed a new diphtheria vaccine called AT-Toxin-Antitoxin. In 1919, Gaston Ramon of the Pasteur Institute developed a new diphtheria vaccine that was based on the administration of toxins, i.e. bacterial toxins that were devoid of harmful properties, but retained the ability to induce an immune response.
Polio vaccine, or Heine-Medina disease
A world without cripples - this was the dream of prof. Hilary Koprowski, who in 1950 was the first to give a young child an effective vaccine against Heine-Medin disease. The vaccine was administered orally, andmass vaccination took place in Congo . In Poland, the polio epidemic began in 1951, when it was diagnosed by 2-3 thousand people annually. kids. In 1958, the epidemic intensified and annually the disease causing irreversible disability was diagnosed in 6,000. children.
Mass vaccinations began in our country in 1959. After vaccination, the number of new cases dropped sharply. Vaccination against polio is on the compulsory vaccination calendar.
Even Elvis Presley persuaded to vaccinate polio in the US, who on October 28, 1956, during the broadcast of the program "The Ed Sullivan Show" gave himself a flash of vaccination. In 2001, the WHO announced that Europe was free from the disease, but in 2022, for the first time in many years, cases of the disease were caused by neglectvaccinations!2
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