Vaccination Overview

Edward Jenner 

Queen Mary 11, 1662-1694.
Died of smallpox.

 The first documented use of vaccination against smallpox occurred in China around 1000 A.D. when smallpox sores were opened to remove pus, or the dried scabs were ground into a powder, and the resulting material was either scratched into the skin surface or blown into patients’ nostrils. This procedure became known as ‘variolation’, covered by the more modern term, inoculation. Emperor K’ang Hsi, who had survived smallpox as a child, had his children inoculated by variolation in the late 1600s. Queen Elizabeth 1 caught it on October 10^th 1562 and survived but her Lady in Waiting, Lady Mary Sydney, survived but her intense scarring caused her retirement from the Court as did the blight on the former legendary beauty of Lady Katherine Howard in 1619. Queen Mary died of the disease in 1694. In 1721 Lady Mary Wortley Montague, wife of the British Ambassador to Constantinople, decided to have her five year old daughter treated by variolation, having had both sons similarly treated successfully in 1717. The several English physicians who witnessed the treatment, were impressed by the mildness of the subsequent illness and this success stimulated further interest. King George 1 had his grandchildren ‘variolated’ but first, six prisoners in Newgate Prison supposedly volunteered to be guinea pigs in exchange for reprieves and eleven charity schoolchildren received the treatment successfully, after which two Royal children followed suit.

Jenner in action. 1802 cartoon by James Gillray.
Wellcome Institute Library, London.

In 1774, farmer Benjamin Jesty of Yetminster in Dorset, took matter from a cowpox lesion and rubbed it into scratches made with a darning needle in the arms of his wife and two sons. None caught smallpox in spite of living in an area of a smallpox epidemic at the time.

Approximately 10% of all deaths in Britain at this time came from smallpox hence the decision by Edward Jenner in 1796 to attempt to find a cure after noticing repeatedly that milkmaids who contracted cowpox always seemed to avoid later infections of smallpox. Edward Jenner, house pupil of the famous surgeon, John Hunter, at St George’s Hospital, London, had been inspired by his tutor as to the importance of experimentation and after studying cowpox for 20 years, made his first human experiment. On May 14, 1796, he took lymph from a cowpox pustule on the wrist of dairymaid, Sarah Nelmes, and inserted it into two superficial incisions in the arm of a boy, James Phipps. Jenner checked the boy’s condition and symptoms daily, recording the following:

'On Day 7, he complained of 'uneasiness' in the 

Jenner with his gardener's son, James Phipps
May 1796.

 axilla; on Day 9, he became a little chilly, lost his appetite and had a slight headache. On the following day, he was perfectly well. The appearance of the incisions were similar to that produced by variolous matter. On July 1, the boy was inoculated with matter taken immediately before from a smallpox pustule. Several punctures and slight incisions were made in both his arms and the matter was well rubbed into them but no disease followed.'

Jenner continued his experimentations successfully and a few years later published his classic 75 page paper entitled, ‘ An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of Cowpox.’ Although translated into the major European languages, his paper had a mixed reception . However, by the end of 1801, over 100,000 vaccinations had been performed in England with other European countries slowly following. Opposition continued however into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries though approximately half of English children were vaccinated between 1870-73. In 1870 an epidemic [blamed, of course, on French refugees] killed over 44,000, a quarter of which total was in London and this greatly increased demand for infant vaccination. In 1871, 93% of children born in England and Wales were vaccinated, with special officers appointed to ensure no one was missed. Predictably the element of compulsion aroused opposition so that around 30% of children avoided vaccination by 1897.

1808 cartoon by Isaac Cruikshank showing
Jenner and 2 colleagues seeing off anti-vaxxers.
[Online, the handwritten remarks can be read!]

And the story continues to the present day with, anti-vaxxers growing in number in the 21^st century! The last known case of smallpox occurred in 1978.

I am indebted to Wye Historical Society [Kent] newsletter both for the idea of, and chiefly the information on, vaccination. My blood pressure needed a break from Trump and it is always a salutary lesson to learn of human creativity and the predictable emotional resistance to life-saving progress.

America's First Anti-Democratic Leader

On the march.

Much of the world is still reeling from the brutal and violently riotous assault on the Washington Capitol on January 6th. Trump’s Save America rally immediately before the event, specifically called for the attack, singled out Pence, urged the potential rioters to be strong and set them off on their murderous way. Rudy Giuliani threw a little fuel on to the fire, calling, in his Trump warm-up act for

trial by combat. I have just watched [Jan 10th] a 35 minute video, filmed by someone within the crowd [who had no time to do anything other than film] as the building was attacked, entered forcefully and desecrated. The noise, violence, the chanting We want Trump/ Stop the Steal/; the sheer animal force and brutality of a mob totally out of control, drunk on unrestricted power and convinced of the rightness of The Cause. It is terrifying to behold.

The fifty Capitol policemen had no chance against the thousands, many half-crazed with the dizzy excitement of being where they were, with the power to do exactly as they pleased. Despite denials, it is apparent that White House staff and close allies of Trump including former Trump campaign staff and family, worked with organisers such as Women For America First and Stop the Steal, to plan and promote Wednesday’s events. The permit for the march, obtained on Jan 4 by Kylie Jane Kremer, daughter of Tea Party activist, Amy Kremer, was operative between 9.00 a.m. and 5.00 pm and covered 30,000 marchers. The chatter about the planned insurrection was amplified on Twitter and Facebook with supporters openly discussing their plans online. On more extremist media sites like 8kun [linked to QAnon] there was talk “for weeks” about the planned siege of the Capitol. So the remarks of the Washington Police Chief, Robert Contee, at a news conference that there was no intelligence to suggest there would be a breach of the Capitol, seems at least, disingenuous. 8kun put out a message on Jan 5th: As many Patriots as can be. We will storm Government buildings, kill cops, kill security guards, kill federal employees and agents and demand a recount. [8kun]

Plato

Aristotle

I learned today [Jan 11th] that Aristotle worried that, in a democracy, a wealthy and talented demagogue could all too easily master the minds of the populace and that Plato noted a particular risk for tyrants: that they would be surrounded, in the end, by yes-men and enablers. Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale, in a wonderfully illuminating essay in the New York Times of January 9^th, mused on the similarities between Trump’s methods and those of the Nazis: in 1930s Germany, they used the new-fangled radio to replace the pluralism of journalism; Trump communicated via the unrestrained bullhorn of Twitter. Like the Nazis, Trump declared journalists to be enemies, constantly referring to “fake news”, akin to the Nazi, “Lugenpresse”, lying Press.

Timothy Snyder

Josh Hawley in unhelpful pose.

Snyder also unpicks the strands of the Republican Party to explain the continuing support there, even post-chaos on Wednesday, for the Trump viewed by the world, including a majority of Americans, as terrifyingly disgraced. He identifies the ‘breakers’ and the ‘gamers’. The latter want to game the system to maintain power. They are happy to use constitutional obscurities, dark money and gerrymandering to win elections with a minority of voters. He identifies Mitch McConnell as a leader who consistently indulged Trump allowing his electoral fiction to flourish, without commenting on the consequences. The breakers do not care if they break the system; the aim is to gain or keep power even without democracy. He cites Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz who challenged States’ electoral votes to cause delays and impress Trump followers knowing they could not effect the outcome. They were joined by 8 senators and over 100 representatives who voted for the lie that had caused them to flee their chambers.

Snyder suggests that, at the core of Trump’s fantasy of electoral fraud, there lies the belief that
it was a crime committed by blacks against whites. The persistent, traditional racism which continues to blight American life and politics, remains to underpin all.