Vaccination invention

In 1796, Edward Jenner noticed that milkmaids never contracted smallpox. Milkmaids work with cows a lot and often contract cowpox. This disease is quite harmless for humans. It also makes them immune for the far more dangerous smallpox disease, from which many people were suffering in the 18th century.

This gave Jenner the idea to inject people with cowpox as it made people develop antibodies against smallpox and then they didn’t contact smallpox at all! Genius, isn’t it?

This was the birth or invention of vaccination and vaccines for all sorts of diseases were developed. Vaccination has saved millions of lives and prevented people from contracting numerous diseases. Before the invention of vaccination a third of all children died before the age of five due to all sorts of diseases that cause few troubles today.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 30th, 2015