Smallpox used to kill 
millions, But a chance discovery led to the first Vaccine.
millions, But a chance discovery led to the first Vaccine.Around 1/3 of adults infected with smallpox would die, and 8 out of 10 infants.
In 1721 in Boston smallpox wiped out 8% of the population. One treatment was to give the patient 12 bottles of beer every 24 hours. The intoxication might have at least dulled the pain. Click "Read more..."
By the 1700's it was well known in rural England that a group of people seemed to be immune to smallpox. Milkmaids instead contracted a mild cattle disease called cowpox. In 1774 a farmer Ben Jesty scratched some pus from cowpox lesions on the udders of a cow into the skin of his wife and sons. None contracted Smallpox.
Many Years later a Country Doctor, Edward Jenner, in 1796 after gathering some circumstantial evidence from farmers and milkmaids, decide to try an experiment.
A potentially fatal experiment. On a child.
He took some pus from cowpox lesions on the hands of a young milkmaid and scratched it into the skin of 8-year old James Phipps. After a few days of mild illness, James recovered sufficiently for Jenner to inoculate the boy with matter from a smallpox blister. James did not develop smallpox, nor did any of the people he came into close contact with.
Jenner is know as the father of vaccination and from his crude discovery in the 18th century has come the world of vaccines as we know them and the saving of millions of lives.
