Vaccination
Vaccines are an integral part of modern preventive medicine. Without vaccines, not only would most malignant epidemics still be around, and the world would also be in a much more polluted era. The streets would be littered with diseased, there would have to be mass graves for the dead, and the healthy would have to be quarantined inside a sterile environment.
The history of differentiating between diseases and vaccinating them is a practice that has been used for more millennia than you can count on two fingers. In 900 BC, a Persian physician named Rhazes was the first to publish a written account attempting to distinguish between measles and smallpox (successful or not is a whole other matter). It takes about 2500 years before any more development in the field of vaccination. In 1661, Chinese Emperor Kiang wrote a letter that stated that he fully supports inoculation, which is the introduction of a pathogen or antigen into a living organism to stimulate the production of antibodies. Then in 1676, English doctor Thomas Sydenham publishes ‘Medical observations on the history and cure of acute diseases’ which successfully distinguishes measles from smallpox while in great detail. The report also stated details about Scarlet Fever which was big at the time. In 1678, a Boston newspaper published America’s first medical work, Thomas Thatcher’ pamphlet: A Brief Rule to Guide the Common People of New England how to order themselves and theirs in the Small Pocks, or Measles. Once again, Thomas Sydenham discovers a medical breakthrough in 1684 by concluding that the common health practices, not available to the poor, were more harmful than good in mild smallpox cases. Sydenham’s discovery would be the last big medical innovatio...
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...of antitoxin and serum therapy in 1890. To get antitoxin, they immunized guinea pigs with heat-treated diphtheria toxin. They then discovered that they could cure diphtheria in animals by injecting the serum, blood products, from the guinea pig into the animal. Following the discovery of antitoxin, English physician S. Monkton Copeman discovered that adding glycerin to lymph makes it act as a germicide in 1891. The first big Polio epidemic will happen on June 17, 1894 in Rutland County, Vermont. Then, only 4 years after the discovery of the diphtheria antitoxin, Mulford Company of Philadelphia began to test and produce antitoxin in the US. Since there was no common standard for potency of an antitoxin container, each container had a different potency. To solve this, German scientist Paul Ehrlich developed a standardized unit of measure for the diphtheria antitoxin.
Through the rise of technological advances in medicine, the vaccine has changed the world for the greater good of the human race. Making a great triumph and virtually eliminating an array of life-threatening diseases, from smallpox to diphtheria, thus adding approximately thirty years to many humans’ life spans. Although, a new complication has arisen, possibly linking neurological digression with this rise of new vaccines. Such a digression has forced parents to exempt their children from receiving vaccinations and brought forth mental anguish affecting the minds of many.
After watching The Vaccine War, the main concerns of vaccines are public safety, the aftermath of injecting harmful chemicals into ones’ body and the parents that choose not to vaccinate their children. In the beginning of the documentary, a mother, Jennifer Margulis, states she felt like it was not needed for her newborn child to be vaccinated for a sexual transmitted disease. She feels like the ingredients are scary for a young child to take in with an immature immune system. The other issue is a massive outbreak of disease that could have been prevented. The Center of Disease Control is carefully watching the town that Ms. Margulis lives, Ashland, Oregon, because it’s the least vaccinated places in America due to parents opting out of vaccines.
Vaccine safety is one of the most controversial topics in today’s public discourse. Everyone has heard of them, but few know why they are so encouraged. A vaccine contains a weak or dead version of a microbe. This creates a small scale invasion of the immune system, which activates cells to destroy the microbe. Once these cells have been made they are always there to provide protection. This protection is immunity, for those cells are then able to recognize any live version of the same microbe and attack it immediately. This can save lives but also be dangerous, vaccines carry many other components which can cause side effects. These could be simple adverse effects such as a small cold or, in the rare case,
The 1950s were a decade in American history that was filled with many of successes. Everybody was excited and relieved now that the war was finally over and that their loved ones were safely home with their families. Families in the 1950s were very conservative and always had the perfect family image, until the “teenagers” came along. Teens were not the most likable people in society, because they listened to crazy, tasteless music and were known as rebels. The crazy, tasteless music changed music forever. Since the 50s were right after WWII, many foreign policies emerged, some provided assistance to countries that were in need. The U.S. was also dealing with and epidemic for years, until the early 50s when a vaccine was created which also changed the way vaccinations were given to the public. The 1950’s were the most influential decade towards contemporary America because, throughout this decade not only did we discover vaccinations that saved hundreds of live, but we also had the rise of Rock N’ Roll which changed music forever including a foreign policy which helped rebuild economies in Europe called the Marshall Plan.
Getting vaccinated dates back as far as people can remember. In an article called “Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination” by Stefan Riedel, he states that during the era of 430 BC smallpox had made its big debut and everyone knew that whomever had smallpox became immune to the disease once they got over the sickness. Before they found a vaccination that could cure smallpox, they would just do the best to inoculate it. Edward Jenner was the one who found a vaccination for smallpox. According to Riedel, Jenner found a dairymaid who had cowpox on her body and use some of those lesions and inoculated a little boy. After about a week the little boy just felt some discomfort and a loss of appetite. Later on that year, Jenner incolulsted
Vaccines have been used to prevent diseases for centuries, and have saved countless lives of children and adults. The smallpox vaccine was invented as early as 1796, and since then the use of vaccines has continued to protect us from countless life threatening diseases such as polio, measles, and pertussis. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) assures that vaccines are extensively tested by scientist to make sure they are effective and safe, and must receive the approval of the Food and Drug Administration before being used. “Perhaps the greatest success story in public health is the reduction of infectious diseases due to the use of vaccines” (CDC, 2010). Routine immunization has eliminated smallpox from the globe and led to the near removal of wild polio virus. Vaccines have reduced some preventable infectious diseases to an all-time low, and now few people experience the devastating effects of measles, pertussis, and other illnesses.
Vaccinations prevent deadly diseases from spreading but if parents neglect to immunize their child they are at a greater risk of contracting a fatal disease and spreading it to other people. Other parents who neglect vaccinations do so in fear that their child will fall ill or develop autism because of important diseases but there is an extensive amount of safety and care that goes into vaccines before they are released to the public ensuring they are safe for use. Another problem that could occur due to parents refusing vaccination is fatal diseases of the past could rise again causing mass death and illness of others. Immunization has affected the world in many different ways, it has protected new youth and has saved the lives of many generations. Without vaccination, the world population would drop significantly. Immunization has affected the world by protecting the world's youth and the population as a whole. Without these crucial vaccinations, the world would not be the same and as healthy as it is now. Mumps, Measles, Whooping Cough, Smallpox, Polio and, Diphtheria are all diseases that were once death sentences are now combated by vaccinations that are saving lives of everyone around the
With vaccines more abundant we can eradicate harmful disease like HPV, influenza, and Hepatitis. All treatable and yet still common among many communities in the United States. The only chance is providing people the necessary information and requiring mandated immunizations with no exempts in every state. Then maybe we can eradicate those diseases and permanently wipe them off worldwide like small-pox. Vaccines are safe and if we continue providing them we could eventually face disease like HIV and even some cancer that have not ever been able to treat in the future.
Vaccines have been around for hundreds of years starting in 1796 when Edward Jenner created the first smallpox vaccine. Jenner, an English country doctor noticed cowpox, which were blisters forming on the female cow utters. Jenner then took fluid from the cow blister and scratched it into an eight-year-old boy. A single blister came up were the boy had been scratched but it quickly recovered. After this experiment, Jenner injected the boy with smallpox matter. No disease arose, the vaccine was a success. Doctors all around Europe soon began to proceed in Jenner’s method. Seven different vaccines came from the single experimental smallpox vaccine. Now the questions were on the horizon. Should everyone be getting vaccinations? Where’s the safety limit? How can they be improved? These questions needed answers, and with a couple hundred years later with all the technology, we would have them(ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
Vaccinations are designed to help people go through their everyday life. A country doctor, Edward Jenner, who lived in Berkeley, England, first administered vaccines in 1796 (Health Affairs). Throughout history, vaccinations have become better to where they are safer for the human body. Everyone should get vaccinated against certain disease to stay healthy. Vaccines have been proven to make people immune to serious diseases (Childhood Immunization). By being vaccinated the person is not only helping themselves but others around them too. Vaccines are an important tool for preventing disease and should be mandatory for all people.
This modified toxin was suitable for immunizing animals to obtain antitoxin but was found to cause severe local reactions in humans and could not be used as a vaccine. In 1909, Theobald Smith, in the U.S., demonstrated that diphtheria toxin
(Jane C Finlay, Noni E MacDonald, 2001). Working with Vaccine -hesitant parents. Canadian Paediatric Society. Retrieved May 3, 2013, from http://www.cps.ca
The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus.
Polio is a virus that may cause the victim to be paralyzed. “In the 1950s Jonas Salk created a vaccine that was 80-90% effective in preventing Polio”, as said in the book History of Poliomyelitis by John Paul. Now in the 21st century Polio is very rare and there is zero known cases in the US. Jonas Salk used many different versions of the virus to create different Vaccines that could possibly work in destroying polio. Before the creation of the Polio vaccine it was not rare for someone to have been diagnosed. Daniel Salk, Jonas’s eldest son, was diagnosed with Polio, which caused him to experiment on his family first. Many kids were being affected by polio and many people wanted to find a way to prevent the virus, which is exactly what Jonas Edward Salk did. Salk created the Polio Vaccine to prevent the future generations from having
For innumerable centuries, unrelenting strains of disease have ravaged society. From the polio epidemic in the twentieth century to the measles cases in the latter half of the century, such an adverse component of nature has taken the lives of many. In 1796, Edward Jenner discovered that exposure to cowpox could foster immunity against smallpox; through injecting the cowpox into another person’s arm, he founded the revolutionary concept known as a vaccination. While many attribute the eradication of various diseases to vaccines, many United States citizens are progressively beginning to oppose them. Many deludedly thought that measles had been completely terminated throughout the United States.