What did we do before vaccines? A thread
Smallpox was one of history's most feared diseases, a killer and a mutilator. Its most severe form had a mortality rate of 30%. There is no cure for smallpox although that didn't stop our forebears from trying.. (1/8)
#CelebrateVaccines

The Persian physician Rhazes (854-925) suggested smallpox patients should be bled, made to sweat excessively and to avoid eating melon under all circumstances (if you accidentally consumed one you had to very quickly drink a lot of citrus juice)... (2/8)

Haly Abbas (d.982-994) preferred his patients to undergo an extremely painful procedure of puncturing their pustules with a needle and then rubbing salt on the resulting wounds. This practice was still being carried out in England in the 1300s... (3/8)

If you couldn't cure smallpox, perhaps you could prevent it. In Japan smallpox was believed to be the work of Hōsōshin (疱瘡神), demons that were afraid of the colour red, and it was recommended to hang up red cloths to drive them away... (4/8)

But soon the colour red was being used as a cure. John of Gaddesden (d.1361) wrote "take a scarlet or other red cloth, and put it about the pox; as I did to the King of England’s son when this disease seized him, and I permitted only red things to be about his bed"... (5/8)

Meanwhile, in China, the Middle East and Africa, pustule fluid was scratched onto skin and powdered scabs inhaled to cause a (usually) mild infection + subsequent immunity. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought this to England in 1721... (6/8)
(Image @ExploreWellcome CC BY 4.0)

Enter Edward Jenner who in 1796 proved that the disease cowpox would confer immunity against smallpox: the world's first vaccine. Much safer than using smallpox to protect against smallpox. Less than 200 years later smallpox had been eradicated worldwide by vaccination... (7/8)

Thank goodness for vaccines. We now know that they are the safest and most effective way to protect against disease. The evidence is clear: smallpox is no more, thanks to vaccines (and you can still eat melons) #CelebrateVaccines #VaccinesWork (8/8)