VACCINES (1796)

 

VACCINES (1796)

It is difficult to pinpoint when vaccines became an accepted practice, mostly because the journey to discovery was long and complicated. Beginning with an attempt by Edward Jenner in 1796 to use inoculations to tame the infamous smallpox virus, the usefulness and popularity of vaccines grew very quickly. Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, various vaccinations were created to combat some of the world’s deadliest diseases, including smallpox, rabies, tuberculosis, and cholera. Over the course of 200 years, one of the deadliest diseases known to man – the smallpox – was wiped off the face of the earth.  Since then, virtually all vaccines have worked using the same concept. That was until a new technology, called mRNA, came along and created game-changing possibilities for the future of healthcare. Its high effectiveness, capacity for rapid development and potential for low production costs was evident during the Covid-19 pandemic two separate mRNA vaccines were developed and approved for use in just a matter of months. 

 

ANAESTHESIA (1846)

Before the first use of a general anaesthetic in the mid-19th century, surgery was undertaken only as a last resort, with several patients opting for death rather than enduring the excruciating ordeal. Although there were countless earlier experiments with anaesthetic dating as far back to 4000 BC – William T. G. Morton made history in 1846 when he successfully used ether as an anaesthetic during surgery. Soon after, a faster-acting substance called chloroform became widely used but was considered high-risk after several fatalities were reported. Since the 1800s, safer anaesthetics have been developed, allowing millions of life-saving, painless operations to take place. 

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GERM THEORY (1861)

Before the ‘germ’ theory came about, the widely believed theory was that disease was caused by ‘spontaneous generation’. In other words, physicians of the time thought that disease could appear out of thin air, rather than being air-borne or transferred via skin-to-skin contact. In 1861, French microbiologist Louis Pasteur proved through a simple experiment that infectious disease was a result of an invasion of specific microscopic organisms - also known as pathogens - into living hosts. This new understanding marked a significant turning point in how diseases were treated, controlled and prevented, helping to prevent devastating epidemics that were responsible for thousands of deaths every year, such as the plague, dysentery and typhoid fever.