Vaccinations have been around for over two centuries, but when did we begin focusing on vaccinations and immunization? According to an article written by Alexandra Stern on Health Affairs, Edward Jenner performed the world's first vaccination in 1796 when he "[Took] pus from a cowpox lesion on a milkmaid’s hand, [and] inoculated an eight-year-old boy, James Phipps." Two weeks later, Jenner exposed the boy's hand to smallpox but the boy remained unaffected by the disease. After several more trials and experiments, Jenner published Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccine, which would go onto become a "a classic text in the annals of medicine" His assertion “that the cow-pox protects the human constitution from the infection of smallpox” grew the foundation for modern medicine and vaccinations today. Even after Jenner's discovery, Stern states that "it took more than 80 years for scientists to discover new vaccines". Since then, we have developed vaccinations for several different diseases, including the MMR vaccine, chickenpox vaccine, and flu vaccine.
To read more about Alexandra Stern's information, visit here:
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/3/611.full
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