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NASAL DRY POWDER VARIOLATION. “Chinese physicians discovered that when healthy people were exposed to smallpox scab tissue, they were less likely to get infected with the disease later on (or if they did, it was a much milder, less dangerous version). The most common form of inoculation in China was to crush smallpox scabs into powder, then breathe it in through the nose.” Achieved through the nasal mucosa. https://lnkd.in/ezcRH6N View in LinkedIn

REPLICONS. “Viruses do not reproduce by division, but are replicated by the self-assembly of preformed components. This, not size, differentiates them from cellular living organisms such as bacteria. A virus-infected cell is more like a car factory than a womb. Also, unlike living organisms, no virus has the means of generating its own energy – they are all energy pirates.” https://lnkd.in/eixJrrD View in LinkedIn

TENTH CENTURY SMALLPOX VACCINES. “In 429 BCE, Greek historian Thucydides recorded that people who survived the smallpox epidemic in Athens were safe from re-infection. 900-1000 AD. The first precursor to a modern vaccination, however, occurred in China. The Chinese were the first to develop a primitive form of a vaccine around the 10th century, according to the NHS. Known as variolation or inoculation, the method was developed to prevent smallpox.” https://lnkd.in/ezcRH6N View in LinkedIn

VARIOLATION. “Inoculation, hereafter referred to as variolation, was likely practiced in Africa, India, and China long before the 18th century, when it was introduced to Europe.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

BIOLOGICAL WARFARE. “During the French-Indian War (1754–1767), Sir Jeffrey Amherst, the commander of the British forces in North America, suggested the deliberate use of smallpox to diminish the American Indian population hostile to the British.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

THE NEW BLACK DEATH. “By the seventeenth century [smallpox] had replaced the plague as Europe's most devastating and feared disease." Its effects were dramatic and, since it was not limited to any particular risk group or risk behaviors, it threatened virtually everyone. No one was safe from its scourges. In fact, before the practice of vaccination became common, "almost everyone eventually contracted the disease." It was common enough that a proverb in Jenner's time declared that "From smallpox and love but few remain free." https://lnkd.in/ettvWHm View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE is an historical vignette about the historic public health success of eradicating smallpox. Not only does the history contain the practices of experimenting on prisoners and the poor, it was also based entirely on supposition not evidence in animals. Preclinical studies were almost unheard of back then. However, this extremely severe plague is now eradicated in no small thanks to these very controversial approaches. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0300985810378649 View in LinkedIn

ANCIENT POLINTON ORIGINS. “The Polintons are integrated within the genomes of diverse unicellular protists and animals, suggesting an ancient origin, perhaps coincident with the origin of eukaryotes, as well as substantial evolutionary success.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

IATROGENIC MEDICINE. “In fact, when we read that "the rate of smallpox infection in England actually rose during the eighteenth century," we cannot help but wonder if the practice of variolation may have contributed to that increase by directly increasing the number of infected (and therefore infectious) persons in the population.” http://www.bioethicscourse.info/jotsite/jot-chp2.html View in LinkedIn

SIGNIFICANT SIDE EFFECTS. “Although 2% to 3% of variolated persons died from the disease, became the source of another epidemic, or suffered from diseases (e.g., tuberculosis and syphilis) transmitted by the procedure itself, variolation rapidly gained popularity among both aristocratic and common people in Europe.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn