Chapter 21 Section 4 The Invention of Human Pox Vaccination

The idea of ​​immunity has a very early origin.Ge Hong's "Elbow Backup Emergency Prescription" in the Jin Dynasty has a prescription for treating "猘〔zhizhi〕狗" (mad dog biting people).The method is very simple, that is, kill the biting mad dog, take its brain and apply it to the patient, so that rabies will not recur. The greatest impact on immunity was the invention of vaccination against smallpox.Legend has it that during Song Zhenzong (998-1022 A.D.), several children born to Prime Minister Wang Dan in his early years all suffered from smallpox and died young.In his later years, he had a son named Wang Su, so he asked who could vaccinate against smallpox. At that time, someone told him: "There is a magic doctor for vaccinating", and Wang Dan was very happy to hear that.In less than two months, the genius doctor was invited to Bianjing (Kaifeng, Henan) to vaccinate Wang Dan's son.Fever occurred seven days after inoculation, and the pox had scabbed 12 days later.This legend can only be seen in the literature records of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.Therefore, whether vaccination was invented in the Song Dynasty still lacks strong evidence.But as late as the Ming Dynasty, vaccination to prevent smallpox had received widespread attention.According to Yu Maokun's "Pox Ke Jin Jing Fu Ji Jie" records: "Vaccination method started in Taiping County, Ningguo Prefecture during the Longqing period of Ming Dynasty" and "spread to the world".It shows that the invention of vaccination was at least before the middle of the 16th century.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were many works describing vaccination methods.There are mainly four of them: (1) Acne clothing method: Use the shirt of a child with smallpox and put it on the vaccinated person to make the latter infected with smallpox.This is a more primitive method, and the effect is not good. (2) Pox pulp method: dip cotton into the pustule [pao bubble] pulp of smallpox patients, and stuff it into the nostrils of the inoculated person to infect it.This method is very dangerous and is generally not used. (3) Drought pox method: dry the pox scab and grind it finely, and blow it into the nasal cavity of the vaccinated person with a silver tube.

(4) Chickenpox method: Dry and grind the pox scab in the shade, then adjust the humidity with water, dip it in cotton and stuff it in the nostrils of the inoculated person. (3), (4) two kinds of methods, belong to the vaccine method, than (1), (2) two kinds of methods progress.At that time, great attention was also paid to the storage and improvement of vaccinia.The vaccinia used at first was actually a scab called "shimiao", which was more dangerous.After that, the scabs after several vaccinations were used as the vaccine, which is called "vaccination", also known as "cooked vaccine".After the mature seedlings have been inoculated several times, their virulence is greatly weakened and they are very safe, so people also call them "sacred seedlings".

Historically, vaccination has been widely used due to its effectiveness in preventing smallpox. "Zhang's Medical General" (AD 1695) said: "There was a theory of vaccination in the early years. It started from Jiangyou, reached Yanqi, and recently spread all over the north and south." He also said: "Recently planting flowers (that is, vaccination) is popular everywhere, regardless of villages or cities." It can be seen that as early as the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, vaccination against smallpox had been widely practiced all over the country, and soon spread to the world many countries.As early as 1688 AD, Russia asked to send doctors to our country to study vaccination.In 1718 AD, the wife of the British minister, Montagu, learned vaccination in Turkey, and returned to England to publicize and promote it.In 1721 AD, the American physician Bowers vaccinated his son and two slaves against human pox for the first time in the United States.Qin Na, the inventor of vaccinia, was originally a doctor who vaccinated against human pox.Not only did he vaccinate others, but he also vaccinated himself.It was on the basis of the Chinese pox vaccination that he successfully created the vaccination method.

Chinese pox inoculation is a pioneer of human immunology and has made valuable contributions to human immune prevention science.