Immunization and History

PUSS! SCABS!!! POX!!! NEEDLES!!! These are my notes to date on Immunization History in the Middle Ages. My comments are in italics. My research is cut and pasted. I will keep the internet links here and then go off and find the appropriate periodicals as I find them.

Ok, listen up. Did this occur in period? We know Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought the practice of variolation to England from Turkey in 1721.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/polio/virusvaccine/history.htm

Variolation

Long before the colonial period in Africa, some tribes practiced a method of protection against smallpox called variolation. It involved inserting fluid from smallpox blisters under the skin. This was intended to produce a mild form of the disease and give the person immunity from severe illness. In some parts of Asia, a mixture of smallpox scabs and pus was pricked into the skin. The Chinese blew powdered scabs into the nostrils.

The technique of scratching smallpox fluid onto healthy people was introduced to Britain and western Europe in the early 1700s. Variolation became quite popular for a short time but soon lost favor as its potential dangers became more apparent. The procedure also became popular in the American colonies for awhile, but was eventually outlawed by several states until shortly before the American Revolution (1775-1783). Variolation remained controversial until Jenner's famous 1798 announcement. (http://www.discoveriesinmedicine.com/Hu-Mor/Inoculation.html)

The great thing about variolation is that it comes in different forms. This site mentions scabs up the nose. Too cool! http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/smallpox/sp_variolation.html

Treating smallpox in China

The Chinese were the first to exploit the observation that survivors of disease did not get re-infected through an early form of vaccination called variolation, which was carried out as early as the 10th century and particularly between the 14th and 17th centuries.

The aim was to prevent smallpox by exposing healthy people to matter from the lesions caused by the disease, either by putting it under the skin, or, more often, inserting powdered scabs from smallpox pustules into the nose.
http://www.immunisation.nhs.uk/article.php?id=347

Timeline

Milestones in Immunisation

429 BC – Thucydides notices smallpox survivors did not get re-infected

900 AD – Chinese practise variolation

1700s – Variolation reaches Turkey and rest of Europe

1796 – Edward Jenner: from variolation to vaccination

1803 – Royal Jennerian Institute founded

1870s – Violent opposition to vaccination

1880s – Louis Pasteur - sheep trials and rabies

1890 - Emil von Behring discovers basis of diphtheria and tetanus vaccines

1920s – Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and BCG (against tuberculosis) vaccines widely available

1955 – Polio immunisation programme begins

1956 – WHO launch global drive to eradicate smallpox

1980 – Smallpox eradicated

Whoooooooo hooooooooo This demonstrates that there is a subject to pursue here. The 14th century documents are where most of my research is likely to take place but, I really want to find stuff from the 10th century. Powdered scabs are disgusting but the kids in class will love that. My sister would have too as she was a notorious scab picker.

A method for protection against naturally acquired smallpox infection appears to have been discovered in India sometime before ad 1000.^12,13 There it became the practice to deliberately inoculate, either into the skin or by nasal insufflation, scabs or pustular material from lesions of patients. This practice resulted in an infection that was usually less severe than an infection acquired naturally by inhalation of droplets. From India, the practice spread to China, western Asia, and Africa and finally, in the early 18th century, to Europe and North America.¹⁴ Case-fatality rates associated with variolation, as it was called, were about one tenth as great as when infection was naturally acquired, but those infected in this manner were capable of transmitting smallpox by droplet inhalation to others. After cowpox began to be used as a protective vaccine, the practice of variolation diminished. Even as recently as the 1960s and 1970s, however, variolation continued to be performed among remote populations in some parts of Ethiopia, western Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.⁴
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=vacc.chapter.3

Footnotes are my friend! Now we are getting somewhere. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=vacc.biblist.61 Shows the bibliography. This also shows two documents researching Chinese medical practices that I will have to get copies of for my work.

12. Macgowan DJ. Report on the health of Wenchow for the half-year ended 31 March 1884. China, Imperial Maritime Customs Medical Reports 27:9–18, 1884.

13. Needham J. China and the origins of immunology. Centre of Asian Studies Occasional Papers and Monographs No. 41, University of Hong Kong, 1980.

The bit on putting Lady Mary in her place and the WHO papers probably are less important. Needham sounds familiar from previous research so that may be an opportunity for an article and interview. Ooooooo look!!!

History of Bioterrorism

A chronological History of Bioterrorism and Biowarfare Throughout the Ages.

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6th Century B.C.
Assyrians poison the wells of their enemies with rye ergot.

6th Century B.C.
Solon of Athens poisons the water supply with hellebore (skunk cabbage), an herb purgative, during the siege of Krissa.

184 B.C.
During the naval battle against King Eumenes of Pergamon, Hannibal's forces hurled earthen pots filled with serpents upon enemy decks. Hannibal won as the Pergamene were forced to fight against man and snake.

1346
During the siege of Kaffa, the Tartar army hurls its plague-ridden dead over the walls of the city. The defenders are forced to surrender.

1422
At the battle of Carolstein, bodies of plague-stricken soldiers plus 2000 cartloads of excrement are hurled into the ranks of enemy troops.

15th C
It has been said that during Pizarro's conquest of South America, he improved his chances of victory by presenting to the natives, as gifts, clothing laden with the variola virus.

1710
Russian troops hurl the corpses of plague victims over the city walls of Reval during Russia's war with Sweden.

1763
Captain Ecuyer of the Royal Americans, under the guise of friendship, presents to the native Americans two blankets and a handkerchief contaminated with smallpox.

http://www.bioterry.com/HistoryBioTerr.html

Oh my. Finally, could this be the evidence of corpse flinging? If they reference that stupid italian book as a source I shall scream. I do like how it has a 'send to a friend link' on a bioterrorism page. Bwhahahahaha.

And Sir Ralf Payne-Galwayt quotes a passage from Varrilas to the effect that " at his ineffectual siege of Carolstein in 1422, Coribut caused the bodies of his soldiers whom the besieged had killed to be thrown into the town in addition to 2,00() cart loads of manure. A great number of the defenders fell victims to the fever which resulted from the stench, and the remainder were only saved from death by the skill of a rich apothecary, who circulated Carolstein remedies against the poison which infected the town.,' http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/rg1927/ch10.htm

Poo flinging!!!! Stay on track Auree. No. I need to tag this as flinging. I am hungry. Time for lunch!