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SO ENDS this history of medicine portrait of the heuristic approach to problem solving. Society faced a severe public health threat from smallpox that killed millions. Physicians had little to go on but educated guesses, without the benefit of theory. The germ theory was only accepted in 1880; viruses were not isolated until 1892. Animal studies of diseases were not fully established until the later work of Koch and Pasteur, and preclinical vaccine testing was not required until the 20th century. While the ethics of these early studies has been severely criticized, today the world is free of the scourge of smallpox. View in LinkedIn

EMPTY HANDED. “Jenner went to London in search of volunteers for vaccination. However, after 3 months he had found none.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

MEMORIAL. “The discovery and promotion of vaccination enabled the eradication of smallpox: this is Edward Jenner's ultimate vindication and memorial.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

GREATEST PUBLIC HEALTH SUCCESS. “Arguably one of the greatest successes in disease biology, and indeed in the whole of public health, was the elimination of smallpox from the face of the earth in 1979.” https://lnkd.in/des8sHN View in LinkedIn

GLOBAL ERADICATION. “On May 8, 1980, the World Health Assembly announced that the world was free of smallpox and recommended that all countries cease vaccination.” Arguably, this also left the world vulnerable to a future outbreak. https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

THE SWITCH. “Eventually, vaccination was accepted, and in 1840, the British government banned variolation – the use of smallpox to induce immunity – and provided vaccination using cowpox free of charge.” https://lnkd.in/dj2sruA View in LinkedIn

JENNER’S WITHDRAWAL. “After a decade of being honored and reviled in more or less equal measure, he gradually withdrew from public life and returned to the practice of country medicine in Berkeley. Sorrows crowded in on him, and he withdrew even further from public life.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

JENNER’S ACTIVE LATE CAREER. “In 1821, he was appointed physician extraordinary to King George IV, and was also made mayor of Berkeley and justice of the peace. He continued to investigate natural history, and in 1823, the last year of his life, he presented his "Observations on the Migration of Birds" to the Royal Society.” https://lnkd.in/dj2sruA View in LinkedIn

THE NEXT SECTION focuses on reductionism versus wholism, how they arose, and the consequences of each. View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this section on the impact of the discovery of the giant viruses, the bridge between more streamlined and outsourced, supposedly simpler, viruses that many consider, at best, to be in twilight life states, and truly living cells. Our human-centric view of the natural world is veering towards a tipping point of a revision. We are a tiny minority of the life forms on the planet. View in LinkedIn