How did Edward Jenner discover vaccinations?
Prior to Jenner’s time people used a technique called variolation to protect from smallpox. Variolation was actually a form of vaccination. Smallpox scabs or pus were put into the nose or under the skin of the person to be protected, usually a child. It caused a mild form of smallpox which made the person immune to further attacks of the disease. Variolation was quite dangerous as it could go wrong and cause full-blown smallpox. Jenner learned that milkmaids who had had a disease called cowpox were immune to smallpox. he did some experiments which showed that infecting a person with cowpox made them immune to smallpox, and he campaigned to have variolation stopped and cowpox vaccination introduced (vacca means cow in Latin). There are some interesting facts in the links below. One is that religious fundamentalists campaigned against vaccination because they thought it was unnatural (nothing changes!). The other is that Americans learned the process of variolation from African slaves.
