(June 15, 2021 at 11:02 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(June 15, 2021 at 8:34 am)Brian37 Wrote: Actually, I sincerely have to thank you. I just looked up the history of vaccines. I honestly did not know it went as far back as 1796.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_v...ox%20virus.
But what is amazing comparing back then and now, is how did the medical community back then figure out how to inoculate people back then without the knowledge of DNA? I can only guess the primitive concept was to inject a small amount of the virus to create antibodies to fight it? It is the same tolerance motif with other things. Small doses of anything and your body builds up a tolerance or immunity. I simply didn't know how far back the history of vaccines went.
Actually, inoculation goes much further back than 1796, to the 10th century, IIRC.
As to how Jenner worked it out, it was largely by observation and inference. There’s a disease similar to, but much milder than smallpox, called ‘cowpox’. Jenner noticed that while many milkmaids got cowpox, none of them who had had it got smallpox. He hypothesized that having had cowpox conferred immunity against smallpox. He deliberately infected a boy with cowpox. When the child recovered, he deliberately infected the same boy with smallpox. He didn’t get sick.
Boru
Certainly observation has been the linchpin of the building blocks of the history that lead up to modern science. But modern science didn't exist at the time of Plato or Socrates, or the ancient Egyptians, despite their master building techniques of their respective periods. 10th century wouldn't be that much different.
"Trial and error" has always existed for sure, be it medicine or engineering. But that does not mean those in the past were accurate in any modern sense. One can tinker and repeat and still not know why what they did was working.
Today's vaccines are literally based on DNA/RNA sequencing and not just injecting the virus like poison to build up immunity. It is like the difference between Franklin making a kite, and Boeing coming up with the next jumbo passenger jet.
