Edward Jenner’s Studies on Smallpox and Its Relation to Modern Chicken Pox

The origin of this natural disease is lost in prehistory, it has been believed to have appeared around 10,000 B. C. At the same time, it has been reported in ancient Asian cultures as early as 1122 B. C. It was not introduced until the Europeans arrived between the middle ages, and the earliest evidence were skin lesions found on the faces of mummies. Edward Jenner had an insight of this contagious disease and investigated and experimented vaccines for this vital disease called smallpox.

English Physician Edward Jenner born in 1749 introduced vaccination against smallpox. “In 1768 when Jenner was 13 years old, training as an apprentice apothecary in chipping Sudbury, England. ” During this time, Jenner was just starting to explore and learn and getting new ideas under his mentor. “While training to be a physician Jenners fellow, John. They discussed the situation about the milkmaid's observation his fellow encouraged him to do more investigation and explore his thoughts about what was happening. His fellow told him about the lady who happened to work milk around cows and could have been exposed to disease and decided to analyze and study information about the situation. Soon enough, Jenner came up with a vaccination and decided to test it on the milkmaid. “On May 14, 1796 he vaccinated a young milkmaid with symptoms of smallpox, and later suffered no ill effects. He vaccinated this woman to see if she would be immune to the smallpox if injected with cowpox. Jenner wanted to see that because she had symptoms of smallpox but originally was diagnosed with cowpox and if she was injected with smallpox would she be immune, or would she contract the disease.

“Jenner had been impressed by the fact that a person who suffered from cowpox could take smallpox”. He wanted to do more research and experiment on how this was all happening so sudden. Jenner made sure he was collecting the right evidence and wanted to be sure he could figure out the most information about this vital disease. “Jenner than further investigated the theory and connected evidence that supported his inoculation of the milkmaid in 1796” Jenner wanted to be completely sure of the evidence he collected and wanted everything to make sense. “From his evidence, Jenner had Provided a relatively safe way to immune people from the deadly smallpox disease”. He was creating a way so more people would not be able to contract this disease. Jenner was becoming to discover vaccines that would later help in society.

"Vaccines have come to be recognized by public health authorities as one of the most cost-effective intervention available” meaning that vaccines have been improving since Jenner and has gone as far as being medically used for patients and the public. “Jenner concluded that cowpox not only protected against smallpox but also could be transmitted from one to another”. He understood that this disease was contagious, and anyone could end up encountering the smallpox disease. Jenner just wanted to figure out, how could someone get the disease, how it could be transferred from one person to the other and what can he do to help come up with a vaccine. Two years later Jenner published his observations under a very lengthy title which was. “An Inquiry into The Causes and Effects of Variola Vaccinal, a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Countries of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of Cowpox”. He released this to give the public some knowledge about what was going on in the society at that specific time. Jenner wanted to help the public as much as he could with his knowledge of the smallpox disease. “The reaction from the publication was not immediately favorable”. Apparently, the public population was not so fond of the publication and its exposure to the outside world. Jenner came up with a way to have two different viruses act against each other for immunity. “Apparently, cowpox virus was similar to human so that inoculation with one Protected disease against another”. Basically, if you had cowpox they would inject you with smallpox and it would fight against the other.

“Jenner went to London Seeking volunteers for vaccinations but in the three months was not successful. ” No one wanted any put of Jenner investigation and no one gave him the time of day. Everyone thought what Jenner was doing was such so absurd they did not want anything to do with his experiments. They did not think that they could encounter the smallpox, so why would they want to be part of the trial and error process.

Chicken pox is commonly compared to Jenner’s discovery of smallpox. “Chicken pox is caused by the variola zoster virus which belongs to the herpes virus family. Whereas smallpox is caused. The two diseases of virus have the same basic contracting forms. “Chicken pox is still rampant in children and immune-compromised people where as smallpox has been eradicated”. This virus is still very common in children in all ages and skin colors”. Many children under the age of 10 normally encounter chicken pox and end up with sores and itchy scaly patches of skin. Which makes them want to scratch their body twenty-four seven, but they are definitely not supposed to as it makes it worse and could even cause lesions to appear on the body. The characteristics of the lesions on the hand separated these two injections. “In smallpox the skin lesions are developed more so over the hands, legs, and face very few appear on skin. It's as if these lesions only appear on certain areas of the skin depending on how severe it is. “Features of chicken pox lesions in all stages of the rash such as boils, blisters, and scabs can be a single patent of the skin. ” These lesions apparently seemed very similar to the smallpox but after because there were no rashes found. Which can be true, if someone with chicken pox did not scratch their bodies while scales were on them causing or having no rashes at all.

The beginning of this virus was unknown, and Jenner did not how it could be transmitted. Jenner wanted to know, how this disease even come into the UK, where Jenner was born. Everything was just not making sense to him and he was confused about the smallpox disease. “Smallpox was a commonly severe, it was a debilitating disease spread through tiny droplets of saliva. ” No one knew how this disease could even be contracted or knew that it could be contracted only by salvia. “Transmission of both by droplet inflection and by direct contact with a skin lesion of the infected person”. Both infections can be passed from one person to another, only by saliva. Jenners discovery of vaccination to immune someone fighting the smallpox disease help the population to not become in contact. Which can also relate to how people treat chicken pox today's society. He put in a ton of hard work and did trial and error, and continuously worked to find a way to come up with his vaccination. Jenner also published books and articles to inform society about what was going around the world. Those published are still used to this very day in hope that they can use the smallpox vaccine to cure chicken pox.

In conclusion, today's society Chicken pox is compared to Smallpox, even though smallpox was no longer in existence nor exposed to the people, when chicken pox was first discovered. What if smallpox never was treated, and society just changed the name to chicken pox instead of smallpox? Think about the looks on human skin look the exact same and hasn’t changed over time.