And vaccines…
how are they related to this?
Vaccines are a biological preparation whose goal is to produce immunity against disease by stimulating the production of antibodies.
They can be, for example, a suspension of dead or attenuated microorganisms; products or subunits of microorganisms and even DNA. In general, as the response to vaccines is to generate antibodies, they usually stimulate the AIS.
A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
In history, there were several events that preceded the beginning of the era of vaccination. First, there were procedures where scabs caused by smallpox were inoculated in healthy individuals. Even though this procedure was performed from time immemorial, it was only in 1786 when the English physician and scientist, Edward Jenner, carried out the first medical experiment related to vaccination.
Jenner’s experiment
Dr. Edward Jenner was a scientist, physician in the countryside and a poet. He observed that milkmaids that were in constant contact with cows and that occasionally got infected by a disease called vaccinia (kind of bovine smallpox), did not get smallpox that affects humans.
With this idea in mind, Jenner took secretion samples of the blisters from a milkmaid who has caught vaccinia (smallpox that affects bovines) and he inoculated the wound of a child with it. After six weeks, he inoculated the same child with pus from a person sick with smallpox and the child showed no sign of infection.
Later, it has been discovered that this cowpox is a milder variant of deadly smallpox that affects humans.
As a result of this, the term vaccination appeared.
