Okay, boys and girls and non-binary darlings, circle up. IT'S STORY-TIME.

I've learned some things in the last 48 hrs re: the history of immunology that, not once during the 10 years of training to get a PhD in immunology, did I ever hear about &...I think y'all should hear it.

Edward Jenner is hailed as the "father of immunization," bc of his use of vaccinia virus (cowpox) to immunize against the much deadlier smallpox.

Brilliant! Even before we understood how the immune system worked, he figured out how to subvert it and save lives. Genius, right?

The narrative of a lone, white man making such an earth-shatteringly important discovery is an oversimplification, and, you guessed it, not the whole story.

The whole story is out there, but I'm pretty embarrassed that I had never heard it before, so here it is (or part of it):

Jenner's claim to fame was using a weaker (and thus safer) strain of the virus for immunizing, which made the process (again) safer and easier to regulate.

However, the process of intentional immunization had been around for almost a millennium before Jenner's vaccine.

As early as 9th century AD, the Persian physician Al Rhazes observed that survivors of smallpox were immune to subsequent exposure to the disease (1).

In 1000 AD China, inhalation of dried smallpox scabs was a common practice to develop immunity against smallpox, and it worked (2).

In 16th century Northern Africa, it was also common practice, although they inoculated by rubbing pus from an infected lesion into an open wound vs. inhalation.

A Libyan slave named Onesimus described this procedure to Cotton Mather in Boston in the early 1700s (pre-Jenner) (3).

The idea didn't get much traction in colonial Boston, because, YOU GUESSED IT! Racism.

A few physicians who bought into the concept tried it (and it worked), but smallpox immunization in Boston didn't really catch on until Jenner. https://www.history.com/news/smallpox-vaccine-onesimus-slave-cotton-mather

Immunization against smallpox was also common in the Ottoman Empire. The British poet Lady Mary Wortley Montague was living in Constantinople, and described watching Turkish women perform the procedure (3).

Lady Mary had her son immunized in Turkey, and then brought knowledge of the procedure back to England, where she encouraged a local physician to immunize her daughter (3).

A woman helped bring this information to the Western world. A woman who learned by watching other women.

To all of my friends who are women, LGBTQ, POC, 1st-gen, disabled, etc. don't let ANYONE tell you you don't belong in STEM (especially immunology!!) because you aren't an abled white man. Don't let anyone tell you that this needs to be a boys' club because "it always has been."

We need to TALK about the contributions women and people of color have made to science and medicine, not just because they deserve recognition (although they do), but because there are SO many scientists being told they don't belong in their fields, and that's not okay.

I'm aware of & overwhelmed by the degree of privilege I have as a thin, white, abled, cis/het woman who is a 3rd generation PhD.

So to everyone who feels unwanted or is blatantly told they aren't wanted:

We want you to be here. *I* want you to be here. And we really need you.

I understand the difference between anecdotal/folk medicine and hypothesis-driven science, that that's why we talk about Elie Metchnikoff and Paul Ehrlich as founding fathers of immunology, and not the unnamed Turkish women who performed smallpox immunizations.

I get that.

I understand that the use of Vaccinia was safer and easier to regulate, and that harnessing the science in a way that it could have widespread clinical applications is also important and worth recognition (Woooo Jenner, you did it, man! I recognize you!).

But to downplay or even ignore the fact that women and people of color 1) made the SAME observations that Jenner did (CENTURIES before him), 2) tested the hypothesis that controlled exposure to smallpox would protect from full-fledged infection, & 3) saved lives bc of it?

Nope.

Nope nope nope nope nope. We're not doing that anymore. Their observations were valid, their discoveries were valid, the lives they saved were valid.

These stories are worth way more recognition than they've gotten, at least in my own training.

As we're expanding our discussions of learning from & applying indigenous wisdom in this generation, what can we learn about the fact that Western men snubbed the very practice that they'd later pride themselves on for sharing w/ the world?

(I won't answer for you, but I hope it's pretty obvious)

.............

(Spoiler: WE NEED TO LEARN FROM AND APPLY INDIGENOUS TEACHINGS INTO MODERN SCIENCE. This information isn't lesser because it wasn't obtained in a Laboratory)

Well kids, that's all for today, but I was really excited about learning this stuff and also sad that it took this long for me to learn about it.

References:

1. Band, I. C., and M. Reichel. 2017. Al rhazes and the beginning of the end of smallpox. JAMA Dermatology 153: 420.
2. Doherty, M., and M. J. Robertson. 2004. Some early Trends in Immunology. Trends Immunol. 25: 623–631.

3. Boylston, A. 2012. The origins of inoculation. J. R. Soc. Med. 105: 309–313.