Smallpox: The triumph over the most terrible of the ministers of death
Smallpox: The triumph over the most terrible of the ministers of death
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DOI：
10.7326/0003-4819-127-8_part_1-199710150-00010
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发表时间：
1997-10-15
影响因子：
39.2
通讯作者：
Domingo, P
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Barquet, N;Domingo, P
200多年前，爱德华·詹纳进行了一项实验，为根除天花奠定了基础，并改变了人类与疾病的斗争。天花像其他任何疾病一样折磨着人类；它的持续和传播是无与伦比的。这种疾病至少摧毁了三个帝国。几代人无助地看着他们的孩子死于这种疾病，或者被它毁容或失明。人们试图通过隔离天花患者来控制天花，后来又使用变种方法，取得了不同程度的成功。然而，直到18世纪末詹纳的工作完成，才找到最终的解决方案。因接触奶牛乳房而患上牛痘的挤奶女工告诉詹纳，她们没有感染人类形式的牛痘；詹纳听取了她们的民间智慧，并将其提升到科学事实的地位。詹纳没有发现疫苗接种，但他是第一个证明这种技术提供了对天花的可靠防御的人。它也是对其他疾病的可靠防御，如脊髓灰质炎、麻疹和新生儿破伤风，尽管这在詹纳的有生之年并不为人所知。
More than 200 years ago, Edward Jenner performed an experiment that laid the foundation for the eradication of smallpox and transformed humankind's fight against disease. Smallpox afflicted humankind as no other disease had done; its persistence and diffusion were without parallel. The disease brought down at least three empires. Generations watched helplessly as their children succumbed to the disease or were disfigured or blinded by it. Attempts were made to contain smallpox by isolating its sufferers and, later, by using variolation with varying degrees of success. However, the definitive solution was not found until Jenner's work was done at the end of the 18th century. Milkmaids who had developed cowpox from contact with cow udders informed Jenner that they were protected from the human form of the disease; he listened to their folk wisdom and raised it to the status of scientific fact. Jenner did not discover vaccination, but he was the first to demonstrate that this technique offered a reliable defense against smallpox. It was also a reliable defense against other illnesses, such as poliomyelitis, measles, and neonatal tetanus, although this was not known in Jenner's lifetime.