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EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN. “Jenner submitted a paper to the Royal Society in 1797 describing his experiment, but was told that his ideas were too revolutionary and that he needed more proof. Undaunted, Jenner experimented on several other children, including his own 11-month-old son.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/jenner_edward.shtml View in LinkedIn

BREAKING THE MOLD. “Not only are the particles of giant viruses bigger than the cells of numerous bacteria and archaea, but also the genomes of pandoraviruses, the current virus world record holders at approximately 2.5 Mb, are substantially larger and richer in gene content than many bacterial and archaeal genomes, from both parasites and free-living microbes, and even the genomes of some parasitic eukaryotes, such as Microsporidia.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN. “Jenner submitted a paper to the Royal Society in 1797 describing his experiment, but was told that his ideas were too revolutionary and that he needed more proof. Undaunted, Jenner experimented on several other children, including his own 11-month-old son.” https://lnkd.in/dWmFFud View in LinkedIn

JENNER’S VACCINATION. “In May 1796, Edward Jenner found a young dairymaid, Sarah Nelms, who had fresh cowpox lesions on her hands and arms. On May 14, 1796, using matter from Nelms' lesions, he inoculated an 8-year-old boy, James Phipps. No disease developed, and Jenner concluded that protection was complete.” James Phipps was son of Jenner’s gardener. https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

JENNER’S VACCINATION. “In May 1796, Edward Jenner found a young dairymaid, Sarah Nelms, who had fresh cowpox lesions on her hands and arms. On May 14, 1796, using matter from Nelms' lesions, he inoculated an 8-year-old boy, James Phipps. No disease developed, and Jenner concluded that protection was complete.” James Phipps was son of Jenner’s gardener. https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

THE HYPOTHESIS. “Pondering this, Jenner concluded that cowpox not only protected against smallpox but also could be transmitted from one person to another as a deliberate mechanism of protection.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE concludes this weekend on the continuation of the historical vignette about the development of the smallpox vaccine in the west. An equally interesting history could be told about its very early development in China and India. This history shows that the development of medical advances can, at times, be based on flimsy evidence, uncontrolled experiments, apples-and-oranges source materials, a degree of quackery mixed with obsession, and a decidedly zig-zag path. But despite this, these advances can occur. View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE concludes this weekend on the continuation of the historical vignette about the development of the smallpox vaccine in the west. An equally interesting history could be told about its very early development in China and India. This history shows that the development of medical advances can, at times, be based on flimsy evidence, uncontrolled experiments, apples-and-oranges source materials, a degree of quackery mixed with obsession, and a decidedly zig-zag path. But despite this, these advances can occur. View in LinkedIn

EXACT VACCINE UNCERTAIN. “Some modern virologists believe that the vaccine used to immunize people throughout the 19th century was closer in form to smallpox than to cowpox; in other words, that vaccination was variolation by another name. The truth is that we just don’t know —and because no samples of the 19th century vaccine survive, we may never know.” https://lnkd.in/eYNfQxg View in LinkedIn

VACCINE ACCEPTANCE. “Despite errors, many controversies, and chicanery, the use of vaccination spread rapidly in England, and by the year 1800, it had also reached most European countries.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn