Researched
Smallpox inoculation
Giving healthy people a mild dose of smallpox matter cut deaths; long practised in Asia and Africa, it reached Britain and Boston in 1721.
Open in the interactive tree →Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had seen it in Istanbul, and in Boston Zabdiel Boylston inoculated people in 1721-22 with far fewer deaths than natural smallpox caused. The method led directly to Jenner's safer cowpox vaccination.
Prerequisites
- Ancient clinical medicine~400 BC
- Probability Theory1654
Unlocks
- Vaccination1796Jenner's cowpox method replaced the riskier inoculation with smallpox matter
Sources
More in Medicine · Industrial Age
- Vaccination1796
- Stethoscope1816
- Anesthesia1846
- Epidemiology1854
- Sewers and clean water1858
- Germ theory1861
- Hygiene and antisepsis1867
- Antibodies and serum therapy1890