Dissolving Illusions – Disease, Vaccines, and a History You .docx

~ 5 ~Smallpoxand the First Vaccine“... they lye on their hard matts, the poxe breaking and mattering, and running one into another, their skin cleaving to the matts they lye on; they turne them, a whole side will flea off at once.”– William Bradford, 1634“Fresh vesicles subsequently formed around the vaccination pocks coalescing with them and causing them to spread. They developed also on the face, head, body, and in the mouth, the later prevented the child from suckling, and it died exhausted on the 45th day after vaccination.”– Case of a healthy child after vaccination, March 13, 1891“Try re-vaccination – It never will hurt you,For re-vaccination has this one great virtue:Should it injure or kill you whenever you receive it,We all stand prepared to refuse to believe it.”– From a circular signed “The Doctors”, 1876Of all the devastating infectious diseases of the past, smallpox stands out as a particularly dreadful killer. Its infamous reputation is in part because it would cover its victims with oozing sores that disfigured and killed many,and in partbecause it was a disease that people tried to use various medical interventions to help prevent.The first attempt in the Western World in controlling smallpox began with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in 1717. She had returned from the Ottoman Empire with knowledge of a practice of inoculation against smallpox which was a procedure known as variolation. The procedure entailed taking a small amount of material and scratching the skin of the person. If all went well the person would suffer through a mild attack of smallpox and then would be immune to the disease for life. Inoculation was simply giving smallpox to a person in a time and setting of their choosing. The idea behind inoculation was that in a controlled setting a person would do better against smallpox than contracting it at some possibly less desirable time and place in the future.“…they generally use a small scratch, or scarification in one arm, and lodge