The Story of the First Vaccine

The Story of the First Vaccine

Hello and Thanks for visiting the channel again. Today, we’re diving into the fascinating story of the first vaccine.

This is Edward Jenner! And you owe him your life!
Edward was a British doctor who lived in the 18th century, a time when smallpox was at its peak. This deadly disease was one of the leading causes of death in Europe, claiming hundreds of millions of lives—more than any other disease in history.
Edward noticed something intriguing: women who worked as milkmaids and had caught cowpox—a milder disease—seemed to be immune to smallpox. Either they didn’t get sick at all, or if they did, it was a much milder case, and they recovered quickly.
This gave Edward an idea. He decided to test his theory. He took an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps, who was healthy but from a poor background, and made a small cut on the boy’s arm. Then, Edward took some fluid from a cowpox sore and introduced it into the cut. A few weeks later, he exposed James to smallpox. While James did fall ill, his symptoms were mild, and he recovered quickly. Edward realized that the boy’s body was better equipped to fight the disease because it had already encountered a similar virus.
And that's how the idea of vaccination was born! Edward named it 'vaccine' after the Latin word vacca, meaning cow, since cowpox was the key to his discovery.
Over time, the idea evolved. Scientists began using weakened or inactivated versions of viruses in laboratories to train the immune system. This way, when the real virus came along, the immune system would recognize it and know exactly how to fight it.

In the 20th century, the World Health Organization launched a global campaign to eradicate smallpox through widespread vaccination. smallpox was the first disease for which a mass vaccine was developed and distributed. Thanks to this campaign, in 1980, smallpox was declared eradicated—the first disease humanity has ever completely wiped out.

The last known smallpox patient was a hospital worker in Somalia named Ali Maow Maalin, and he survived the disease. Sadly, the final victims of smallpox were in 1978 in England, due to an accident in a microbiology lab. A small amount of the virus leaked, infecting a medical photographer named Janet Parker, who tragically passed away. The microbiologist responsible for the experiment, Henry Bedson, took his own life before Janet succumbed to the illness.

Today, the smallpox virus has been destroyed in most labs worldwide, with only a few samples remaining in secure facilities in the United States and Russia for research purposes. However, there’s always a lingering concern about the virus being used as a biological weapon, especially since anyone born after 1980 hasn’t been vaccinated against it.

Nowadays, vaccines are a routine part of healthcare across the globe, saving millions of lives from severe diseases.
When thinking about the story of the first vaccine, we come to the conclusion that humans were born to interact with nature, the environment, animals, and the earth. This is the only way to train our immune system and turn it into a powerful system that fights viruses and diseases
That’s all for today! I hope you learned something new. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to stay updated. Thanks for watching, and see you next time!