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NEW ATTRIBUTION. “There has been a growing recognition of Benjamin Jesty (1737–1816) as the first to vaccinate against smallpox.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

MILITARY VARIOLATION. “In 1766, American soldiers under George Washington were unable to take Quebec from the British troops, apparently because of a smallpox epidemic that significantly reduced the number of healthy troops. The British soldiers were all variolated. By 1777, Washington had learned his lesson: all his soldiers were variolated before beginning new military operations.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv 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

TWO LIFESTYLES. “Thus, Polintons, which we believe should be more properly denoted polintoviruses, appear to lead a dual lifestyle combining features of viruses and transposons.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

POPULATION IMMUNIZATIONS. “Since there was also a demand for protection against smallpox, physicians soon began the variolation procedure on a massive scale.” Homebrews without quality controls of any type. https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

TRANSPOSON VIRIONS. “Unexpectedly, we have recently found that the majority of the Polintons encode two proteins homologous to the typical capsid proteins of other viruses, strongly suggesting that, at least under some conditions, these transposons actually produce virions that could infect new hosts.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

TRIALS ON ROYALTY. “Finally, on April 17, 1722, Maitland successfully treated the two daughters of the Princess of Wales. Not surprisingly, the procedure gained general acceptance after this last success.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

“TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS, also known as "jumping genes," are DNA sequences that move from one location on the genome to another...roughly half of the human genome is made up of transposons...most of the transposon sequences in the human genome are silent...transposons can drive the evolution of genomes by facilitating the translocation of genomic sequences, the shuffling of exons, and the repair of double-stranded breaks. Insertions and transposition can also alter gene regulatory regions and phenotypes.” https://lnkd.in/e_F3_XW View in LinkedIn

TRIALS ON ORPHAN CHILDREN. “All prisoners survived the experiment, and those exposed to smallpox later proved to be immune. In the months following this very first trial, Maitland repeated the experiment on orphaned children, again with success.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn