Vaccine germination stage
Vaccine germination stage
Smallpox is a severe infectious disease. Once contacted with patients, almost all of them are infected, and the mortality rate is very high. However, two kinds of people are resistant to smallpox: one is those who recover from smallpox, and the other is those who have nursed smallpox patients. Inspired by this phenomenon, our ancestors pioneered the method of smallpox prevention with human pox vaccination. This method is to wear the clothes of patients with scar paste to normal children, or grind the local dull skin after smallpox healing into fine powder, which can be inhaled by normal children through the nose. Because vaccination of human pox has a certain risk (about 1% infection rate), this method has not been widely used, but its invention is of great significance to inspire people to seek ways to prevent smallpox.
In the late 18th century, Edward Jenner (Figure 1), an English village doctor, once received a milkmaid who had fever, backache and vomiting. He realized that vaccination against smallpox could prevent smallpox. In order to confirm this assumption, he took a small amount of pus from the purulent scar of Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid who was suffering from cowpox, and injected it into the arm of James Phipps, an 8-year-old boy, on May 14, 1796. Six weeks later, the boy's cowpox reaction subsided, as Zina said: "Although the child's arm appeared similar purulent scar after pseudosmallpox vaccination, in addition, it was almost imperceptible." In order to verify its effect, Qina has inoculated Fep for many times, but Fep is safe. Two months later, the smallpox fluid from the smallpox patient was inoculated again. Fep only had a scar rash on the local arm, but did not cause smallpox all over the body. Accordingly, in 1798, Qiner published his monograph Inquiry, calling this technology vaccination. In the era of Qiner, people did not know that smallpox was caused by virus infection, nor did they know the mechanism by which vaccination against cowpox made the body immune to smallpox. However, he observed in practice and proved that the method of vaccination against smallpox is safe and effective, which is an epoch-making invention.
In 1980, the World Health Assembly officially announced that smallpox, which had killed 300 million people in Europe and destroyed countless lives all over the world, had been wiped out all over the world, even the kings above all people and emperors known as "the real dragon and the son of heaven". The victory over smallpox is one of the greatest events in the history of preventive medicine.