How did the prejudice of farmers in the English county of Gloucestershire lead to the victory of medicine over smallpox? Detailed answer

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How did the prejudice of farmers in the English county of Gloucestershire lead to the victory of medicine over smallpox? Detailed answer

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How did the prejudice of farmers in the English county of Gloucestershire lead to the victory of medicine over smallpox?

At the end of the XVIII century, one of the most terrible diseases was smallpox. People were afraid of smallpox, not only because it often ended in the death of the patient, but also because those who were lucky enough to recover were doomed to lifelong deformity. In mild cases, smallpox left mountain ash on the face, and in severe cases, it destroyed not only all traces of a person’s beauty, but also external signs of belonging to the human race.

However, some farmers in the English county of Gloucestershire were not afraid of smallpox, having a special opinion on how to protect themselves from it. They were sure that if a person had been ill with cowpox, then this made him immune to ordinary smallpox. (Cowpox sometimes affects humans, but causes only subtle blisters and barely visible marks.)

The village doctor Edward Jenner (1749-1823) decided that this village "prejudice" may contain a grain of truth. He drew attention to the fact that the milkers, who had the greatest risk of contracting cowpox, did not have pockmarks on their bodies. Jenner suggested that cowpox and ordinary (human) smallpox are so similar to each other that the body's defense against cowpox protects a person from ordinary.

He decided to take a chance and on May 14, 1769, he inoculated an eight-year-old boy with cowpox, taking liquid from cowpox vesicles on the hands of a milker as an inoculation material. A month and a half later, he moved to the decisive stage of the experiment, bordering on recklessness: he inoculated the same boy with human smallpox. The boy did not get sick: he became immune to smallpox.

Jenner called the vaccination procedure vaccination (from the Latin "vaccinia" - cowpox). The way he discovered to prevent smallpox spread throughout Europe with supernatural speed.

Author: Kondrashov A.P.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

Why did Theseus and Pirithous descend into the underworld?

When Hippodamia, the wife of Pirithous, and Phaedra, the wife of Theseus, died, the two widowed heroes decided to marry the daughters of Zeus. Theseus chose the Spartan princess Helen, sister of the Dioscuri, and Pirithous helped him kidnap her.

In the bride of Pirithous, friends decided to get Persephone herself, the wife of Hades. They descended into the underworld and, somehow forcing Charon to transport them across the Styx and past the watchdog Cerberus, soon knocked on the doors of the palace of Hades. The lord of the realm of the dead calmly listened to their unprecedentedly brazen demand and, pretending to be hospitable, invited them to sit down. Suspecting nothing, they sat where it was suggested, and found themselves on the throne of oblivion.

Theseus and Pirithous were rooted to the stone throne so much that they could no longer get up from it without being crippled. They were scourged by the Erinyes and torn with their teeth by Kerberus, and Hades looked at all this and grinned grimly. When, four years later, Hercules came to the kingdom of Hades to pick up Kerberos, he recognized two friends. They silently held out their hands to him, begging for help. Persephone graciously allowed Hercules to free her hapless kidnappers and take them with him if only he could. Hercules tore Theseus off the stone and returned to the ground, but when he tried to free Pirithous, the earth shook, and Hercules was forced to retreat.

True, there are those who believe that Theseus and Pirithous never descended into the kingdom of Hades, but tried to kidnap the wife of the king of Thesprot. He, having found out in time about the unholy plan, took the insolent prisoners prisoner, threw Pirithous to be eaten by dogs, and Theseus imprisoned, from where Hercules rescued him.

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