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RECLASSIFICATION. “This argument leads to the assumption that viruses are living, according to the classical definition of living organisms as cellular organisms. Raoult and Forterre have therefore proposed that the living world should be divided into two major groups of organisms, those that encode ribosomes (archaea, bacteria and eukarya), and capsid-encoding organisms (the viruses).” https://lnkd.in/eDXduUb View in LinkedIn

UNCONTROLLED EXPERIMENT. “This experiment involved testing variolation on six prisoners, three men and three women, in Newgate jail in 1721, and the purpose of the test, at first, was solely to determine the safety of the practice of variolation. This experiment, performed of course with no control group, offered the six prisoners their full freedom on the sole condition that they submit to the experiment of variolation.” http://www.bioethicscourse.info/jotsite/jot-chp2.html View in LinkedIn

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. “Those who consider the virus to be the infected cell also believe that viruses are alive.” https://lnkd.in/eDXduUb View in LinkedIn

ON VIRIONS AND VIRUSES. “According to Bandea’s hypothesis, the infected cell is the virus, while the virus particles are ‘spores’ or reproductive forms. His theory was largely ignored until the discovery of the giant mimivirus, which replicates its DNA genome and produces new virions in the cytoplasm within complex viral ‘factories’. Claverie suggested that the viral factory corresponds to the organism, whereas the virion is used to spread from cell to cell. He wrote that “to confuse the virion with the virus would be the same as to confuse a sperm cell with a human being”. https://lnkd.in/eDXduUb View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first of two weekend Fragments on a snippet of the history of the smallpox vaccine, the first to be successfully developed in the west. The attribution of the discovery to Jenner was clearly only a tiny part of a much bigger chain of observations and experiments worldwide, including its practice in the 10th century. What is very interesting is how, without the germ theory of diseases, or experimental methodology, various cultures came up with the same solution. And, without controlled preparations, there was clear immunity induced. View in LinkedIn

PARALLEL EVOLUTION OR MYTH? “The record shows that it was there that Jenner heard a dairymaid say, “I shall never have smallpox for I have had cowpox. I shall never have an ugly pockmarked face.” It fact, it was a common belief that dairymaids were in some way protected from smallpox.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

“EDWARD JENNER’S work is widely regarded as the foundation of immunology—despite the fact that he was neither the first to suggest that infection with cowpox conferred specific immunity to smallpox nor the first to attempt cowpox inoculation for this purpose.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

IMMUNIZATION SOURCE. “Whereas vaccination involved the use of a cowpox vaccine extracted from infected humans with cowpox, the older method of variolation used live smallpox virus, extracted from a human pustule, requiring two week isolation due to infectivity risk (which was often not possible).” https://lnkd.in/eYNfQxg View in LinkedIn

COW UDDER VACCINATE. “When smallpox was present in Jesty's locality in 1774, he was determined to protect the life of his family. Jesty used material from udders of cattle that he knew had cowpox and transferred the material with a small lancet to the arms of his wife and two boys. The trio of vaccinees remained free of smallpox, although they were exposed on numerous occasions in later life.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

FIRST COWPOX VACCINATION. “Benjamin Jesty was a humble cow farmer who observed the immunity afforded milkmaids to smallpox. “His grave stone indicated that he utilized cow pox material to inoculate his wife and sons in 1774, 22 years before Jenner’s experiments in 1796.” The inoculation was conducted with his wife’s knitting needle since he was not a doctor. https://lnkd.in/eMnANmQ View in LinkedIn