History of Smallpox Vaccine

History of Smallpox Vaccine

P.K.Ghatak, MD

No.34

People from earlier days learned from their experiences that once they had survived an attack of Smallpox, they became immune to future smallpox.

In ancient India.

India introduced a method of deliberately infecting people with smallpox, the process was known as Tika and the people who administered smallpox were called Tikadar. It involved collecting the pus from a pustule of smallpox, applying a drop of the pus on the arm of an uninfected individual and superficial cuts were made by a sharp scalpel through the pus. The process was not totally safe; some developed full-blown smallpox and died, but the majority developed one lesion at the site of Tika and the lesion healed in 3 weeks, giving the person full immunity for the rest of their life.

The vaccination reached China through Tibet.

In China, the Chinese collected the scabs from the smallpox victims, dried and pulverized the scabs into a powder. They introduced the power in the right nostril of males and the left nostril of women by a silver blowpipe. The Westerner called this Variolation. China claimed variolation was an original Chinese invention.

In Istanbul, Turkey, in 1718, Lady Mary W. Montague, the wife of the British ambassador in the court of the Ottoman Sultan, observed and was impressed with Variolation. She asked Dr. Charles Maitland, the embassy surgeon, to variolate her 5-year-old son. The process was effective. She wrote her friend in England about variolation to protect people from smallpox.

In England, in 1721, Lady Montague returned home, and she asked Dr. Maitland to violate her 4 year old daughter in the presence of Royal Physicians. This was also successful. Dr. Maitland was granted a license to practice variolation in England. In 1722, he successfully inoculated two daughters of the Prince of Wales. The process gradually spread all over Europe.

In a village in England.

In 1774, a farmer named Jesty, in Yetminster, knew from his experience the protective power of cowpox in preventing smallpox. Using the material from lesions on the cow's udder and making scratches on the skin with a stocking needle and rubbing the material on the skin lesion, he protected all his family members from smallpox at a time when an epidemic was raging through the country.

In another village in England.

In 1760, a country doctor, Dr. John Fewster, practiced vaccination in Thronbury village.

A 13 year boy became his assistant, his name was Edward Jenner. Here he heard many strange stories, including the milkmaids' faces were poxmark-free because they developed pox only on their milking fingers from the lesions from the udder of the cow. Jenner later completed a two-year apprenticeship under the famous surgeon John Hunter and gained the basis of preventing diseases. He started his own practice in his native village and began production of the vaccine and its administration. In 1840 British parliament granted him 10, 000 pounds and again 20,000 pounds for his work. Jenner was very generous in supplying the vaccine to anyone who requested and trained people in its administration. Benjamin Waterhouse of Harvard University obtained the vaccine from Jenner and he gave some of it to Tomas Jefferson. Due to Jefferson's efforts, the Institute of National Vaccine Program was set up in the USA.

The WHO in 1959 took up the challenge to eradicate smallpox from the Earth. The Soviet supplied a heat-stable, freeze-dried vaccine. On 8 May 1980, a little over 100 years after the efforts of Dr. Jenner, the WHO declared that the world had become free of smallpox.

          

        A more detailed discussion on this can be read on my blog:Medical matters: Archive 

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