In Russia. Our article is devoted to the history of vaccination against this dangerous disease.
A few words about smallpox
According to scientists, this highly contagious infection appeared on our planet between 66-14 millennia BC. However, according to the latest results scientific research, humanity began to suffer from smallpox only about 2000 years ago, contracted from camels.
In typical cases, the disease was accompanied by fever, general intoxication, as well as the appearance of peculiar rashes on the mucous membranes and skin, which successively passed through the stages of spots, blisters, pustules, crusts and scars.
Anyone can become infected with smallpox unless they have immunity from vaccination or a previous illness. The disease is transmitted by airborne droplets, making it extremely difficult to protect against. At the same time, infection is possible through direct contact with the affected skin of a patient or any infected objects. The patient poses a danger to others throughout the entire illness. Even the corpses of those who died from smallpox for a long time remain infectious.
Fortunately, in 1980, the WHO declared complete victory over this disease, so vaccinations are not currently carried out.
Story
The first large-scale smallpox epidemic was recorded in China back in the 4th century. Four centuries later, the disease claimed the lives of almost a third of the population of the Japanese islands. Around the same period, smallpox struck Byzantium, where it arrived from Africa during the reign of Emperor Justinian.
In the 8th century, outbreaks of the disease were recorded in Syria, Palestine and Persia, Sicily, Italy, Spain and France.
By the 15th century, smallpox had become commonplace in Europe. One of the famous doctors of that time wrote that everyone should get sick from it. After Columbus's voyages, smallpox spread to the American continent, where it claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. By the beginning of the 18th century, when Europe began to accurately record the causes of death among the population, it turned out that the number of deaths from this disease in Prussia reached about 40,000, and in Germany - 70,000 deaths per year. In general, in the Old World, up to one and a half million adults and children died annually from smallpox. In Asia and other continents, things were even worse.
Smallpox in Russia
There are no written references to this disease in our country until the middle of the 17th century. However, this does not mean that it did not exist. This is evidenced by a dozen names of ancient noble families, such as the Ryabovs, Ryabtsevs or Shchedrins.
By the middle of the 18th century, smallpox had already penetrated all Russian regions, right up to Kamchatka. The disease has affected all layers Russian society, without sparing anyone. In particular, in 1730, 14-year-old Emperor Peter II died from smallpox infection. Peter the Third also suffered from it, and until his tragic death he suffered from the consciousness of his deformity, which was a consequence of smallpox.
Early methods of fighting
From the moment when smallpox epidemics began to break out here and there, attempts were made to find a cure for it. Moreover, sorcerers were involved in the “treatment”, who fought the infection through spells and wearing red clothes designed to draw out the infection from the body.
First more or less effective method The fight against smallpox in the Old World was variolation. The essence of this method was to extract biological material from the pustules of convalescent patients and inoculate them into healthy people by pulling infected threads under the incised skin.
This method came to Europe in 1718 from Turkey, from where the wife of the British ambassador brought it to Europe. Although variolation did not provide a 100% guarantee, among those vaccinated, the percentage of people who became ill, as well as their mortality rate, decreased significantly. The fear of smallpox was so great that after some time members of the family of the British monarch George the First ordered such vaccinations.
The beginning of the fight against the disease in our country
The first smallpox vaccination in Russia was made in 1768. English doctor Thomas Dimmesdale was invited to organize mass variolation in St. Petersburg. So that the population would not resist, Catherine the Second herself decided to set an example. The Empress went to Tsarskoe Selo, where she secretly received the first variolation-type smallpox vaccination in Russia. The biomaterial was taken from a peasant boy, Sasha Markov, who was later granted nobility and the surname Markov-Ospenny.
After the procedure, Catherine was treated for a week, during which she ate almost nothing and suffered from fever and headache. When the empress recovered, the heir Pavel Petrovich was vaccinated, as well as his wife. The English doctor Thomas Dimmesdale received a baronial title as a reward for his labors, as well as the title of physician and a lifelong pension. A few years later, the grandchildren of Catherine II were vaccinated.
Further history
The first smallpox vaccination in Russia, administered to the empress, made variolation fashionable, and many aristocrats followed the example of their monarch. It is known that over the next 2-3 months about 140 courtiers were inoculated. The matter reached the point of absurdity, since even those who had already suffered from this disease and had acquired immunity from it expressed a desire to be vaccinated.
By the way, the Empress was very proud that it was she who received the first smallpox vaccination in Russia and wrote about the effect that her act had on her friends and relatives abroad.
Mass vaccination
The Empress did not intend to stop there. Soon she ordered that all students of the cadet corps, and then soldiers and officers in the units of the imperial army, be vaccinated. Of course, the method was imperfect and deaths were recorded, but variolation, without a doubt, contributed to a decrease in the number of victims from smallpox among the Russian population.
Vaccination using the Jenner method
TO early XIX century, variolation was supplanted by another, more advanced method of preventing the disease, the Latin name of which is Variola vera.
The first vaccination against smallpox in Russia, using the method of the English doctor Jenner, was made in 1801. It was conducted by Professor E. Mukhin, who vaccinated Anton Petrov from the Moscow Orphanage. For this, the child was given the surname Vaccinov and given a pension. Since then, vaccinations have become widespread. The government made sure that as many children as possible were not left without vaccination. In 1815, lists of unvaccinated boys and girls were even compiled. However, until 1919, vaccination against smallpox was not mandatory. Only after the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, vaccinations began to be given to absolutely all children. As a result, the number of patients dropped from 186,000 to 25,000 by 1925.
Moscow epidemic
Today it’s hard to believe, but 300 years after the first smallpox vaccination was made in Russia (you already know who knows), an outbreak of this terrible disease occurred in the capital of the USSR. It was brought from India by an artist who was present at the ritual burning of a deceased barmin. Upon his return, the man infected seven of his relatives, and nine of the staff and three patients of the hospital, where he was taken due to an illness, the cause of which the emergency doctor could not diagnose. The artist himself died, and the epidemic affected more than 20 people. As a result, out of 46 people infected, three died, and the entire population of the capital was vaccinated.
Worldwide Smallpox Eradication Program
If the first vaccination against smallpox in Russia was carried out back in the 18th century, in many countries of Asia and Africa the population was not vaccinated even by the middle of the 20th century.
In 1958, Deputy Minister of Health of the Soviet Union V. Zhdanov presented at the 11th session of the World Health Assembly a program to eradicate smallpox from the planet. The USSR initiative was supported by the summit participants, who adopted a corresponding resolution. Later, in 1963, WHO decided to intensify mass vaccination of humanity. As a result, no cases of smallpox have been reported since 1977. This allowed 3 years later to declare complete victory over smallpox. In this regard, a decision was made to stop vaccination. Thus, everyone who was born on our planet after 1979 this moment are defenseless against smallpox.
Now you know the answer to the question of when the first smallpox vaccination was made in Russia. You also know who first came up with the idea of mass vaccination. Let's hope that this is dangerous disease truly defeated and will never threaten humanity again.
Two centuries ago, vaccination became a salvation for millions of people during a terrible smallpox epidemic. Daily Baby has prepared material for you with interesting facts about the history of vaccinations.
The term vaccination - from the Latin Vacca - “cow” - was introduced into use at the end of the 19th century by Louis Pasteur, who paid due respect to his predecessor, the English doctor Edward Jenner. Dr. Jenner first performed vaccination using his own method in 1796. It consisted in the fact that the biomaterials were taken not from a person who suffered from “natural” smallpox, but from a milkmaid who became infected with “cowpox”, which is not dangerous to humans. That is, something that is not dangerous could protect against more dangerous infection. Before the invention of this method, vaccination often ended in death.
Vaccination against smallpox, epidemics of which sometimes claimed the lives of entire islands, was invented in ancient times. For example, in 1000 AD. references to variolation—injecting smallpox vesicle contents into a risk group—were in Ayurvedic texts in ancient India.
And in ancient China they began to defend themselves in this way back in the 10th century. It was China that pioneered the method of allowing dry scabs from smallpox sores to be inhaled by healthy people during an epidemic. This method was dangerous because when people took material from smallpox patients, they did not know whether the disease was mild or severe. In the second case, those vaccinated could die.
Dr. Jenner - the first smallpox vaccinator
Observing the health of milkmaids, Dr. Edward Jenner noticed that they did not suffer from “natural” smallpox. And if they become infected, they transfer it in a mild form. The doctor carefully studied the vaccination method, which at the beginning of the century was brought to England from Constantinople by the wife of the English ambassador, Mary Wortley Montagu. It was she who vaccinated her children at the beginning of the 18th century, and then forced herself, the King and Queen of England and their children to be vaccinated.
Finally, in 1796, Dr. Edward Jenner vaccinated eight-year-old James Phipps. He rubbed the contents of smallpox pustules that appeared on the hand of the milkmaid Sarah Nelsis into his scratch. A year and a half later, the boy was vaccinated with real smallpox, but the patient did not get sick. The procedure was repeated twice, and the result was always successful.
Not everyone accepted this method of combating epidemics. The clergy, as always, were especially against it. But life circumstances forced to increasingly use Dr. Jenner's method: army and navy soldiers began to be vaccinated. In 1802, the British Parliament recognized the doctor's merits and awarded him 10 thousand pounds, and five years later - another 20,000. His achievements were recognized throughout the world and Edward Jenner was accepted as an honorary member of various scientific societies during his lifetime. And in Great Britain the Royal Jenner Society and the Smallpox Vaccination Institute were organized. Jenner became its first and lifelong leader.
Development in Russia
Vaccination also came to our country from England. Not the first, but the most famous to be vaccinated were Empress Catherine the Great and her son Paul. The vaccination was carried out by an English doctor who took biomaterial from the boy Sasha Markov - he later began to bear the double surname Markov-Ospenny. Half a century later, in 1801, with the light hand of Empress Maria Feodorovna, the surname Vaktsinov appeared, which was given to the boy Anton Petrov, the first to be vaccinated in Russia using Dr. Jenner’s method.
In general, the history of smallpox in our country can be studied by last name. Thus, until the beginning of the 18th century, there were no written references to smallpox in our country, but the names Ryabykh, Ryabtsev, Shchedrin (“pockmarked”) indicate that the disease existed, as elsewhere, since ancient times.
After Catherine II, vaccination became fashionable, thanks to the example of the august person. Even those who had already been ill and acquired immunity from this disease were vaccinated against smallpox. Since then, vaccinations against smallpox have been carried out everywhere, but only became mandatory in 1919. It was then that the number of cases dropped from 186,000 to 25,000. And in 1958, at the World Health Assembly, the Soviet Union proposed a program to completely eliminate smallpox from the world. As a result of this initiative, no cases of smallpox have been reported since 1977.
Louis Pasteur
A huge contribution to the invention of new vaccines and science was made by the French scientist Louis Pasteur, whose name gave the name to the method of disinfecting products - pasteurization. Louis Pasteur grew up in the family of a tanner, studied well, had a talent for drawing, and if it were not for his passion for biology, we could have had a great artist, and not a scientist, to whom we owe a cure for rabies and anthrax.
Painting by Albert Edelfelt "Louis Pasteur"
In 1881, he demonstrated to the public the effect of anthrax vaccination on sheep. He also developed a vaccine against rabies, but chance helped him test it. July 6, 1885 to him as to last hope brought the boy. He was bitten mad Dog. 14 bites were found on the child’s body; he was doomed to die delirious from thirst, being paralyzed. But 60 hours after the bite he was given the first rabies injection. During vaccination, the boy lived in the scientist’s house, and on August 3, 1885, almost a month after the bite, he returned home healthy child— after administering 14 injections, he still did not get rabies.
After this success, the Pasteur station was opened in France in 1886, where they vaccinated against cholera, anthrax and rabies. It is noteworthy that 17 years later, Joseph Meister, the first boy rescued, got a job here as a watchman. And in 1940 he committed suicide, refusing the Gestapo’s demand to open the tomb of Louis Pasteur.
Louis Pasteur also discovered a method for weakening bacteria to make vaccines, so we owe the scientist not only vaccines against rabies and anthrax, but also future vaccines that may save us from deadly epidemics.
Other discoveries and facts
In 1882, Robert Koch isolated a bacterium that causes the development of tuberculosis, thanks to him the BCG vaccine appeared in the future.
In 1891, doctor Emil von Behring saved a child's life by administering the world's first diphtheria vaccination.
In 1955, Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was found to be effective.
Vaccination is one of the hottest topics in disputes between doctors and patients. Misunderstanding, rumors, myths - all this makes people afraid of this procedure, which often leads to sad consequences. With this article, Biomolecule begins a special project about vaccination and the enemies who, with its help, have been successfully driven underground. And we will begin with the history of the first victories and bitter defeats that occurred on the path to the development of modern vaccine prevention.
The invention of vaccines has radically changed the life of mankind. Many diseases that claimed thousands, or even millions of lives every year, are now practically non-existent. In this special project, we not only talk about the history of vaccines, general principles their development and the role of vaccine prevention in modern healthcare (the first three articles are devoted to this), but we also talk in detail about each vaccine included in National calendar vaccinations, as well as vaccines against influenza and human papillomavirus. You will learn about what each of the pathogens is, what vaccine options exist and how they differ from each other, and we will touch on the topic of post-vaccination complications and the effectiveness of vaccines.
To maintain objectivity, we invited Alexander Solomonovich Apt, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor at Moscow State University, Head of the Laboratory of Immunogenetics at the Institute of Tuberculosis (Moscow), to become curators of the special project, as well as Susanna Mikhailovna Kharit, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Prevention Department of the Research Institute of Childhood Infections (St. Petersburg).
The general partner of the special project is the Zimin Foundation.
The publication partner of this article is the INVITRO company. INVITRO is the largest private medical laboratory specializing in laboratory tests and functional diagnostics, including magnetic resonance imaging, mammography and radiography, ultrasound and others.
What do you think was the most destructive and irresistible force in human history? What natural phenomenon do you think was capable of devastating cities and countries, destroying entire civilizations?
Such a force could not help but leave its mark on the folklore and religious texts of those who survived its onslaught. If there was something in the world that could influence the course of history, then the ancient people could reasonably assume that it would sooner or later become the instrument with which the deity would destroy the world he had created.
In the Christian religious tradition there is a text where all these forces are listed briefly and succinctly - “Apocalypse”. Indeed, the image of the Horsemen embodies those phenomena that can unexpectedly overtake a person and destroy both himself and the world around him (Fig. 1). There are four horsemen: Famine, War, Pestilence and Death, which follows the first three.
Violent or starvation death is a long-standing threat to humanity. As our species evolved, we formed ever larger communities to escape it, and at some point began to build and settle in cities. This provided protection from wild animals and neighbors, and also made it possible to establish an efficient economy, which protected against hunger.
But in the cities, with their population density and hygiene problems, a third horseman was waiting for us. Pestilence, the great devastator. Epidemics have changed the political map of the world more than once or twice. More than one empire, including the great Roman one, fell when, weakened by the plague, enemies came to it, whom it had successfully repelled before the disease. Smallpox, so widespread in Europe, was unknown in the Americas, and after the arrival of the Spaniards it became an ally of the conquistadors in the subjugation of the Incas and Aztecs. An ally much more faithful and cruel than a sword or a cross. They generally liked to use it as a weapon both in Europe, throwing besieged fortresses with the bodies of victims of the disease using catapults, and in America, distributing blankets that had previously been used by the sick under the guise of charity to rebellious indigenous tribes. Cholera also made its own adjustments to the course of many political processes, destroying entire armies on the march (Fig. 2) and besieged cities.
Today, however, people no longer remember what it’s like to live in a plague-stricken city, where thousands of people die every day, miraculously those who survived flee without looking back, and looters profit from robbing the owners of empty houses who have fled or died. Pestilence, no matter how terrible it may have seemed to our ancestors, has been practically banished from the modern world. In the five years from 2010 to 2015, just over 3,000 people worldwide fell ill with the plague, and the last death from smallpox was recorded in 1978.
This became possible thanks to scientific discoveries, one of the most important consequences of which is vaccination. Seven years ago, Biomolecule published an article “ Vaccines in questions and answers”, which has since confidently topped the top 10 most read materials on the site. But now we have decided that the information presented needs not only to be refreshed, but also expanded, and therefore we are starting a large special project dedicated to vaccination. In this introductory article we will step by step look at how people defeated one of their most powerful enemies with his own weapons.
Empirical knowledge
Before the occurrence modern science the fight against such a terrible enemy as epidemics was of an empirical nature. Over centuries of human development, society has been able to collect a lot of facts about how the pestilence arose and spread. At first, scattered facts by the 19th century took shape into a full-fledged, almost scientific theory miasma, or "bad air". Researchers since antiquity and up to the modern era believed that the cause of disease was evaporation, initially arising from the soil and sewage, and subsequently spread by a sick person. Anyone near the source of such fumes was at risk of getting sick.
A theory, no matter what wrong foundation it may stand on, is not only intended to explain the phenomenon, but also to indicate how to combat it. To improve the health of the inhaled air, medieval doctors began to use special protective clothing and masks with characteristic beaks filled with medicinal herbs. This attire formed the appearance of the plague doctor, familiar to everyone who has encountered descriptions of medieval Europe in films or books (Fig. 3).
Another consequence of the miasma theory was that one could protect oneself from illness and escape, since bad air arose in crowded places. Therefore, people quickly learned to run away from the disease as soon as they heard about it. The plot of the work “The Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio revolves around stories told to each other by young nobles who have escaped from plague-stricken Florence trying to pass the time.
And finally, the miasma theory offered another way to combat the disease - quarantine. The place where the onset of the disease was noted was isolated from the surrounding areas. No one could leave him until the illness ended. It was because of the plague quarantine in Verona that the messenger was unable to deliver Juliet’s letter to Romeo in a timely manner, as a result of which the unfortunate young man became convinced of his beloved’s death and took poison.
It is clear that infectious diseases and associated epidemics were the cause of great fear and served as an important guiding force in the development of society (Fig. 4). Like effort educated people, and popular thought were aimed at finding protection from infections that claimed so many lives and so unpredictably influenced both individual destinies and entire states.
Protection through disease
Even in ancient times, people began to notice that some diseases tend to have a one-time course: a person who had such a disease once never suffered from it again. Now we consider chickenpox and rubella to be such diseases, but previously they included, for example, smallpox.
This disease has been known since antiquity. The disease affected the skin, on which characteristic blisters appeared. The mortality rate from smallpox was quite high, up to 40%. Death, as a rule, was a consequence of intoxication of the body. Those who survived were forever disfigured by smallpox scars that covered their entire skin.
Even in ancient times, people noticed that those marked by these scars never get sick a second time. This was very convenient for medical purposes - during times of epidemics, such people were used in infirmaries as junior medical personnel and could fearlessly help the infected.
In the West during the Middle Ages, smallpox was so common that some researchers believed that everyone was doomed to get it at least once. Smallpox scars covered the skin of people of all classes, from simple peasants to members royal families. In the East, there was an additional nuance that stimulated society to seek protection from smallpox. If in the West the presence or absence of smallpox scars had little effect on the economic component of a person’s life, then in Arab countries harems and the slave trade flourished. A pockmarked slave, or even more so a girl destined for harem life, undoubtedly lost their value and brought losses to their family or owner. Therefore it is not surprising that the first medical procedures, aimed at protecting against smallpox, came precisely from the East.
Nobody knows where it was first invented variolation- intentionally infecting a healthy person with smallpox by introducing the contents of a smallpox vesicle under the skin using a thin knife. It came to Europe through letters, and then through the personal initiative of Lady Montauk, who traveled to eastern countries and discovered this procedure in Istanbul in 1715. There she variolated her five-year-old son, and upon arrival in England she convinced her four-year-old daughter to be vaccinated with smallpox. Subsequently, she actively campaigned for variolation in Europe and her efforts led to the widespread introduction of this method.
Undoubtedly, the Turks were not the inventors of this approach, although they actively applied it. Variolation has long been known in India and China; it was also used in the Caucasus - wherever beauty could be a profitable commodity. In Europe and America, the procedure received the support of those in power. In Russia, Empress Catherine the Second and her entire family and court were subjected to it. George Washington, during the war for American independence from England, was faced with the fact that his army suffered much more from smallpox than the variolated army of Britain. During one of the winterings, he inoculated all his soldiers with smallpox and thereby protected the army from the disease.
The Greatest Discovery
With all its advantages, variolation also carried danger. The mortality rate among people vaccinated with smallpox was about 2%. This is undoubtedly less than the mortality rate from the disease itself, but it was possible not to get sick from smallpox, and variolation posed an immediate threat. What was needed was an effective, but at the same time safer replacement for variolation.
Koch's postulates and tuberculosis
Smallpox was an extremely convenient disease from a vaccination point of view. The patient seemed to be covered in natural reservoirs with the pathogen - take it and vaccinate it. But what to do with other diseases: cholera, plague, polio? No one yet knew about the true causes of diseases. The world learned about the existence of microorganisms back in 1676 from the works of the inventor of the most advanced optical microscopes, a Dutch shopkeeper and member of the Royal Society of Great Britain, Anthony van Leeuwenhoek (we have already talked about him and his discoveries in the article “ 12 methods in pictures: microscopy"). He expressed a bold hypothesis that the life he discovered could cause diseases, but it was not heard.
Everything changed when two outstanding scientists of the 19th century took up the matter - Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. Pasteur was able to prove the absence of spontaneous generation of life and at the same time discovered one of the methods for disinfecting solutions, which we still use today - pasteurization. In addition, he studied the main infectious diseases and came to the conclusion that they are caused by microorganisms. The subject of his special interest was anthrax and its causative agent, Bacillus anthracis.
Pasteur's contemporary Robert Koch made a real revolution in microbiology, and more than one. For example, he came up with a method of cultivation on solid media. Before him, bacteria were grown in solutions, which was inconvenient and often did not give the desired results. Koch suggested using agar or gelatin jelly as a substrate. The method has taken root and is still used in microbiology today. One of its most important advantages is the possibility of obtaining so-called pure cultures ( strains) - communities of microorganisms consisting of descendants of one cell.
The new methodology allowed Koch to refine the microbiological theory of infections. He managed to grow pure cultures of Vibrio cholerae, anthrax bacillus and many other organisms. In 1905, his merits were noted by the recently established Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine - “for the discovery of the causative agent of tuberculosis.”
Koch expressed his understanding of the nature of infections in four postulates that are still used by doctors (Fig. 9). According to Koch, a microorganism is the cause of a disease if the following sequence of actions and conditions is met:
- the microorganism is constantly found in patients and is absent in healthy ones;
- the microorganism is isolated and a pure culture is obtained;
- when a pure culture is administered to a healthy person, he becomes ill;
- the same microorganism is isolated from the patient obtained after the third step.
Over time, these postulates changed a little, but they became the basis for further development vaccinations. Thanks to the cultivation methods created by Pasteur and Koch, it became possible to obtain an analogue of the liquid that, in the case of smallpox, became available on its own. The impact of these advances can be seen most clearly in the case of the BCG vaccine, which dealt the first blow to the scourge of barracks and prisons - tuberculosis.
To develop a vaccine against tuberculosis, the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis was used - Mycobacterium bovis. Robert Koch himself separated it from the causative agent of human tuberculosis - Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Unlike cowpox, which caused only a slight illness, bovine tuberculosis is dangerous for humans, and using the bacterium for vaccination would be an unjustified risk. Two employees at the Pasteur Institute in Lille came up with an ingenious solution. They inoculated the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis on a medium consisting of a mixture of glycerol and potato starch. For the bacteria it was a paradise resort. Only, unlike modern office employees, the bacteria spent not two weeks, but 13 years in such conditions. 239 times the doctor Calmette and the veterinarian Guerin subcultured the bacterium to new environment and continued cultivation. After such a long period of quiet life, the bacterium, in the course of completely natural evolutionary processes, lost its virulence (the ability to cause disease) almost completely and ceased to be dangerous to people. So people put evolution at their service, and doctors received the most powerful weapon - the vaccine against tuberculosis. Today this bacterium is known to us as BCG ( bacillus Calmette-Guirine) - bacillus Calmette-Guerin(in Russian-language literature, due to a linguistic incident, it began to be called BCG, and Mr. Guerin was renamed by translators to Zhurin), to which we will devote a separate article of our special project.
Sunrise
Vaccines protected humans well against certain bacterial infections thanks to Pasteur, Koch and their followers. But what about viruses? Viruses do not grow on plates and bottles by themselves; applying Koch’s postulates to them (especially with regard to isolating a pure culture) is impossible. The history of the emergence of antiviral vaccines is most clearly illustrated by the example of polio. In terms of drama, it is probably not inferior to many modern blockbusters.
The Salk vaccine was the first to be commercially available. This was largely due to unprecedented testing at that time - more than a million children received the vaccine, which made it possible to convincingly prove its effectiveness. Until recently, it was successfully used in the USA. An important problem was that immunity from vaccination waned over time, and booster (repeated) injections were required every few years.
About how modern clinical researches, can be read in the special project of the same name “Biomolecules”. - Ed.
The Sabin vaccine appeared on the market a little later than the Salk vaccine. It differed from the first one both in filling and in the method of application - it was dropped into the mouth, in the same way that the usual poliovirus enters the body. The result of Sabin's work was not only more effective than the Salk vaccine (immunity lasted longer), but also lacked most of the disadvantages of the Colmer vaccine: side effects occurred much less frequently. Subsequently, another interesting effect of this vaccine was noted: while remaining a living virus, although unable to cause full-blown polio in the vast majority of patients, it nevertheless remained infective - it could be transmitted from a vaccinated person to an unvaccinated person. This led to the spread of vaccination without the participation of doctors. At the moment, to combine the advantages of both types of vaccines, children are first vaccinated with a killed virus, and after several procedures they switch to a weakened one. This allows you to get strong defense virtually no risk side effects. We will talk about vaccination against polio in more detail in the corresponding article of the special project.
Salk became a legend during his lifetime. After the costs of developing and testing the vaccine, unprecedented by public health standards of that time, he refused to patent the result of his work. When asked in an interview why he didn’t do this, he laughingly replied: “Would you have patented the sun?” (video 1).
Video 1. Jonas Salk on the vaccine patent
To be continued...
The first real vaccine was knowingly administered to a child in 1774 by Benjamin Jesty. Almost 250 years ago, a movement began, thanks to which people practically forgot about the third horseman of the Apocalypse, whose name is Pestilence. Since then, we have officially become free of smallpox, samples of which are kept in only a few laboratories around the world. Poliomyelitis has not been defeated, but the number of annual cases is already measured in just a few, and not in tens of thousands, as half a century ago. Cholera, tetanus, diphtheria, anthrax - all these are ghosts of the past that are almost never seen in the modern world. In Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman reflected this change in public consciousness by replacing the horseman of the Apocalypse called Pestilence with Pollution. environment. But that's a completely different story...
Humanity has come a long way to understand the nature of diseases and has suffered significant losses while developing ways to protect against them. And yet we managed. Nature constantly throws us new challenges, either in the form of HIV or Zika fever. The flu mutates every year, but herpes knows how to hide in the body and wait for the right time, without showing itself in any way. But work on new vaccines is in full swing, and soon we will hear news from the fronts about victory over new and old enemies. May the Sun shine forever!
Partner for the publication of this article is the medical company INVITRO.
The INVITRO company has been performing and developing laboratory diagnostics in Russia for 20 years. Today INVITRO is the largest private medical laboratory with more than 1000 offices in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Directions of its activities - lab tests And functional diagnostics, including magnetic resonance imaging, mammography and radiography, ultrasound and others.
Laboratory diagnostics
INVITRO uses high-quality test systems from the world's leading manufacturers and high-tech IT solutions in its work. Thus, the analyzers used in the laboratory are united by the SafirLIS information system, unique for Russia, which ensures reliable registration, storage and quick retrieval of research results.
The company’s quality policy is based on international standards and involves multi-level employee training and the introduction of the most modern achievements laboratory diagnostics. The research results obtained in INVITRO laboratories are recognized in all medical institutions.
"INVITRO" regularly participates in quality assessment programs - FSVOC (Federal System of External Quality Assessment of Clinical laboratory research; Russia), RIQAS (Randox, UK) and EQAS (Bio-Rad, USA).
The company's outstanding achievements in the field of quality are noted at state level: in 2017, INVITRO became a laureate of the corresponding Russian Government Prize.
Innovation is the most important direction for INVITRO. The company is the main investor in Russia's first private biotechnology research laboratory, 3D Bioprinting Solutions, which opened in Moscow in 2013. This laboratory is considered one of the world leaders in the field of three-dimensional bioprinting, being the first in the world to print thyroid gland mice.
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Literature
- Michaela Harbeck, Lisa Seifert, Stephanie Hänsch, David M. Wagner, Dawn Birdsell, et. al.. (2013). Yersinia pestis DNA from Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals Insights into Justinianic Plague. PLoS Pathog. 9 , e1003349;
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For many centuries, humanity has suffered from such a highly contagious infectious disease as smallpox, which claims tens of thousands of lives every year. This terrible disease It was epidemic in nature and affected entire cities and continents. Fortunately, scientists were able to unravel the causes of the symptoms of smallpox, which made it possible to create effective protection against them in the form of smallpox vaccination. Today, the pathology is one of the conquered infections, as was reported back in 1980. This happened thanks to universal vaccination under the auspices of WHO. Such measures made it possible to eradicate the virus and prevent the millions of deaths it caused across the planet, which is why vaccinations are not currently being carried out.
What is smallpox?
Smallpox is one of the oldest infectious diseases viral origin. The disease is different high level contagiousness and occurs in most cases with fatal or leaves rough scars on the body as a reminder of himself. There are two main pathogens: the more aggressive Variola major and the less pathogenic Variola minor. The lethality of the first variant of the virus is as much as 40-80%, while its small form leads to death in only three percent of cases. total number sick.
Smallpox is considered a highly contagious disease; it is transmitted by airborne droplets and contact. It is characterized by severe intoxication, as well as the appearance of a rash on the skin and mucous membranes, has a cyclical development and transforms into ulcers. When infected, patients report the following symptoms:
- polymorphic rashes throughout the body and mucous membranes, which go through the stages of spots, papules, pustules, crusts and scarring;
- a sharp increase in body temperature;
- severe signs of intoxication with body aches, nausea, headaches;
- In case of recovery, deep scars remain on the skin.
Despite the fact that doctors managed to completely defeat smallpox among the human population back in 1978-1980, Lately Increasingly, there is evidence of cases of the disease in primates. This cannot but cause concern, since the virus can easily spread to humans. Considering that last vaccination against smallpox was done back in 1979, today we can confidently say about the possibility of a new wave of the epidemic, since those born after 1980 generally do not have vaccine immunity against smallpox. Medical workers continue to raise the question of the advisability of resuming mandatory vaccination from smallpox infection, which will prevent new outbreaks of a deadly disease.
Story
It is believed that smallpox originated several thousand years BC on the African continent and in Asia, where it passed to humans from camels. The first mention of a smallpox epidemic dates back to the fourth century, when the disease raged in China, and the sixth century, when it killed half of the population of Korea. Three hundred years later, the infection reached the Japanese Islands, where 30% then died out. local residents. In the 8th century, smallpox was recorded in Palestine, Syria, Sicily, Italy and Spain.
Starting in the 15th century, smallpox spread throughout Europe. By general information, every year about a million inhabitants of the Old World died from smallpox. Doctors of that time argued that everyone should get this disease. It would seem that people have come to terms with the smallpox pestilence.
Smallpox in Russia
Until the 17th century, there were no written references to smallpox in Russia, but this is not proof that it did not exist. It is assumed that smallpox raged mainly in the European part of the state and affected the lower strata of society, and therefore was not made public.
The situation changed when, in the middle of the 18th century, the infection spread deep into the country, right up to the Kamchatka Peninsula. At this time she became well known to the nobility. The fear was so great that members of the family of the British monarch George I gave themselves such vaccinations. For example, in 1730, the young Emperor Peter II died of smallpox. Peter III also contracted the infection, but survived, struggling until his death with the complexes that arose against the background of understanding his ugliness.
First attempts at control and creation of a vaccine
Humanity has tried to fight the infection from the very beginning of its appearance. Often sorcerers and shamans were involved in this, prayers and incantations were read, it was even recommended to dress the sick in red clothes, as it was believed that this would help lure the disease out.
First effective way The fight against the disease was the so-called variolation - a primitive vaccination against smallpox. This method quickly spread throughout the world and reached Europe already in the 18th century. Its essence was to take biomaterial from the pustules of people who had successfully recovered from the disease and introduce it under the skin of healthy recipients. Naturally, such a technique did not provide 100% guarantees, but it made it possible to reduce the morbidity and mortality from smallpox several times.
Early fighting methods in Russia
The initiator of vaccinations in Russia was Empress Catherine II herself. She issued a decree on the need for mass vaccination and by example has proven its effectiveness. The first vaccination against smallpox in the Russian Empire was done back in 1768, specially invited for this by the English doctor Thomas Dimmesdale.
After the empress suffered from a mild form of smallpox, she insisted on variolation of her own husband and heir to the throne, Pavel Petrovich. A few years later, Catherine’s grandchildren were also vaccinated, and the doctor Dimmesdale received a lifelong pension and the title of baron.
How did everything develop further?
Rumors quickly spread about the smallpox vaccination that the empress received. And within a few years, vaccination became a fashionable trend among Russian nobility. Even those subjects who had already recovered from the infection wanted to be vaccinated, so the process of immunization of the aristocracy at times reached the point of absurdity. Catherine herself was proud of her action and more than once wrote about it to her relatives abroad.
Mass vaccination
Catherine II was so carried away by variolation that she decided to vaccinate the rest of the country's population. First of all, this concerned students in cadet corps, soldiers and officers of the imperial army. Naturally, the technique was far from perfect, and often led to the death of vaccinated patients. But, of course, it made it possible to reduce the rate of spread of infection throughout the state and prevented thousands of deaths.
Jenner vaccination
Scientists have constantly improved the vaccination method. At the beginning of the 19th century, variolation was overshadowed by the more advanced technique of the Englishman Jenner. In Russia, the first such vaccination was given to a child from an orphanage; Professor Mukhin administered the vaccine to him in Moscow. After successful vaccination, the boy Anton Petrov was granted a pension and given the surname Vaktsinov.
After this incident, vaccinations began to be administered everywhere, but not on a mandatory basis. Only in 1919 did vaccination become mandatory at the legislative level and involved compiling lists of vaccinated and unvaccinated children in each region of the country. As a result of such measures, the government managed to minimize the number of outbreaks of infection; they were recorded exclusively in remote areas.
It’s hard to believe, but back in 1959-1960, an outbreak was registered in Moscow smallpox. It affected about 50 people, three of whom died as a result. What was the source of the disease in a country where it has been successfully fought for decades?
Smallpox was brought to Moscow by the domestic artist Kokorekin from, where he had the honor of being present at the burning of a deceased person. Returning from the trip, he managed to infect his wife and mistress, as well as 9 representatives of the medical staff of the hospital to which he was brought, and 20 more people. Unfortunately, it was not possible to save the artist from death, but subsequently the entire population of the capital had to be vaccinated against the disease.
Vaccination aimed at ridding humanity of infection
Unlike Europe, the population of the Asian part of the continent and Africa was not aware of effective vaccine from smallpox almost to the middle of the 20th century. This provoked new infections in backward regions, which, due to the growth of migration flows, threatened the civilized world. For the first time, doctors from the USSR undertook to initiate the mass administration of a vaccine to all people on the planet. Their program was supported at the WHO summit, and the participants adopted a corresponding resolution.
The mass introduction of the vaccine began in 1963, and 14 years later not a single case of smallpox was recorded in the world. Three years later, humanity declared victory over the disease. Vaccination lost its importance and was discontinued. Accordingly, all inhabitants of the planet born after 1980 do not have immunity from infection, which makes them vulnerable to the disease.
When did people first start getting vaccinated?
Descriptions of epidemics of contagious diseases are preserved in such written sources as the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh (2000 BC according to the old chronology), in several chapters of the Old Testament (II Samuel 24, I Samuel 5:6, I Isaiah 37: 36, Exodus 9:9, etc.). In the 10th century, the Persian physician Razi (Rhazes) gave a clinical description differential diagnosis smallpox, signs of its difference from measles and other febrile diseases with a rash. At the same time, Razi also wrote that people who have recovered from smallpox remain lifelong immune to this disease. Razi’s involvement in immunology was also manifested in the fact that, for some reason of his own, he proposed treating people bitten by poisonous scorpions with donkey serum, bitten by the same scorpions (this is serotherapy!).
According to legend, the practice of preventing black smallpox existed in ancient China. There they did it this way: healthy children were blown into the nose through a silver tube with powder obtained from crushed dry crusts (scabs) from the smallpox ulcers of people with smallpox, and boys were blown through the left nostril, and girls through the right. A similar practice took place in folk medicine many countries in Asia and Africa. From the beginning of the 18th century. the practice of smallpox vaccinations also came to Europe. This procedure was called variolation(from Latin variola - smallpox). According to surviving documents, smallpox vaccinations began in Constantinople in 1701. Vaccinations did not always end well; in 2-3% of cases people died from smallpox vaccinations. But in the event of a wild epidemic, the mortality rate was up to 15-20%. In addition, smallpox survivors were left with unsightly nicks on their skin, including their faces. Therefore, supporters of vaccinations persuaded people to decide on them, if only for the sake of the beauty of their daughters’ faces.
Lady Magu Montague brought the idea and material for smallpox vaccination from Constantinople to England. She variolated her son and daughter and convinced the Princess of Wales to vaccinate their children. In London in 1746, a special hospital, St. Pancras, was opened, in which smallpox was vaccinated for willing residents. Since 1756, the practice of variolation, also voluntary, took place in Russia.
Conventionally, the history of modern immunology usually begins to be traced with the works of an English doctor Edward Jenner(Edward Jenner, 1749-1823), who in 1798 published an article where he described his trials of cowpox vaccinations, first with one 8-year-old boy and then with 23 more people. Jenner was a doctor, but he did not invent the method he tested. He drew professional attention to the practices of individual English farmers. The farmer's name remains on the documents Benjamin Jesty, who in 1774 tried to scratch the contents of cowpox pustules with a knitting needle on his wife and child in order to protect them from blackpox, based on practical observations of peasants. Jenner developed a medical technique for smallpox vaccination, which he called vaccination(vaccus is Latin for cow).
In 1870-1890 thanks to the development of microscopy methods and methods of cultivating microorganisms, Louis Pasteur (Louis Pasteur, 1822-1895; staphylococcus), Robert Koch (1843-1910; tuberculosis bacillus, Vibrio cholerae) and other researchers and doctors (A. Neisser, F. Leffler , G. Hansen, E. Klebs, T. Escherich, etc.) identified the causative agents of more than 35 infectious diseases. Louis Pasteur showed that diseases can be experimentally reproducibly induced by introducing into healthy organisms certain microbes. L. Pasteur went down in history as the creator of vaccines against chicken cholera, anthrax and rabies and as the author of the method of attenuation of microorganisms - weakening the infectivity of microbes through artificial treatments in the laboratory. According to legend, L. Pasteur discovered attenuation by accident. He (or the laboratory assistant) forgot a test tube with a culture of Vibrio cholerae in the thermostat; the culture overheated. Nevertheless, it was administered to experimental chickens, but they did not get cholera.
