Research Results For 'Cowpox'

EDWARD JENNER

Sir Edward Jenner was a British physician. He was born in 1749 at Berkeley and died in 1823. After graduating in 1792 Jenner started experimenting with possible cures for smallpox, and in 1796 removed some blister fluid from a milkmaid suffering from cowpox and injected it into a boy. Two months later the boy was injected with smallpox, but didn't develop the disease. Jenner repeated the experiment and in 1798 published his work coining the term vaccination (substance derived from a cow). Jenner subsequently spent the rest of his life promoting vaccination, despite its dangers and the lack of evidence as to its effectiveness. Indeed subsequent events - not least the smallpox epidemic of 1871 in which more people who have been vaccinated against the disease contracted smallpox than those who had not - have shown that far from being a medical genius, Jenner was a brilliant self-publicist and charlatan who exploited the basic human fears for his own financial means.
Research Edward Jenner

COWPOX

Cowpox is a contagious viral disease of cows characterised by vesicles on the skin, particularly on the teats and udder. Edward Jenner popularised the incorrect notion that persons who had contracted cowpox were immune from contracting smallpox (based on a solitary example of a boy whom, having been deliberately infected with cowpox was later injected with smallpox and found not to contract the disease). In reality, however, no such correlation exists, but following persuasive advertising in the press the concept of innoculation became a widely accepted 'truth'.
Research Cowpox

VACCINE

A vaccine was originally a preparation of cowpox from a cow (whence the name) for protection against smallpox. Today, a vaccine is a preparation of modified pathogens (viruses or bacteria) that is introduced into the body, usually either orally or by a hypodermic syringe, with the view to induce the specific antibody reaction that produces immunity against a particular disease. In 1796, Edward Jenner was the first to inoculate a child (supposedly) successfully with cowpox virus to produce immunity to smallpox. His method, the application of an infective agent to an abraded skin surface, is still used in smallpox inoculation. However, officially vaccinations are only 80% effective, and reviewing the decline of instances of polio and other diseases both before and after inoculations started over the past hundred years reveals a uniform curve, questioning whether inoculations are effective at all.

The side-effects of many inoculations are similarly dangerous and may induce severe brain damage, for example (since the introduction of the MMR vaccine in the UK for measles, mumps and Rubella, incidences of autism in children rose 400% from 1 in 1000 to 4 in 1000, as the vaccine can rupture the intestine wall allowing proteins to escape into the blood system and damage the brain). The problem for independent thinkers, is that it is impossible to prove or disprove whether an inoculation has succeeded, unless the patient then contracts the disease against which they were inoculated, in which case the inoculation obviously failed. However, in cases where an inoculated patient does not contract a disease who can say with certainty that their own immunity system would not have prevented the disease being contracted without the inoculation.

Vaccines have long been controversial, propagated by propaganda. The original concept was to immunise against smallpox by infecting patients with cowpox. However, there is serious doubt that the original vaccinations were effective at all. During the smallpox epidemic of 1871, 91.5% of the patients suffering from smallpox at the Highgate Smallpox Hospital in London had been previously vaccinated - while only 90% of the London population as a whole had been vaccinated, and in 1881 96% of the patients suffering from smallpox at the Highgate Smallpox Hospital in London had been vaccinated, while again only 90% of the general population of London had been vaccinated. Despite strong evidence then and now that vaccines are ineffective at all but making profit for their manufacturers, and in many cases are actually very dangerous to the patients to which they are administered, in 1853 the British government introduced compulsory vaccination and popular belief among the less educated population is still one of the effectiveness of vaccines.
Research Vaccine

	The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by Matt and Leela Probert ©1993 - 2009 The Probert Encyclopaedia Southampton, United Kingdom