Barquet N, Domingo P
Centre d'Assistència Primària Gràcia, Institut Català de la Salut, Barcelona, Spain.
Ann Intern Med. 1997 Oct 15;127(8 Pt 1):635-42. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-127-8_part_1-199710150-00010.
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 don; 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.
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方式。天花对人类的折磨是其他疾病从未有过的；它的持续存在和传播是无与伦比的。这种疾病至少导致了三个帝国的衰落。几代人眼睁睁地看着自己的孩子死于这种疾病，或者因它而毁容或失明。人们曾试图通过隔离患者来控制天花，后来又尝试了人痘接种，取得了不同程度的成功。然而，直到18世纪末詹纳完成他的工作，才找到了最终的解决办法。因接触奶牛乳房而感染牛痘的挤奶女工告诉詹纳，她们对天花具有免疫力；他听取了她们的民间智慧，并将其提升到科学事实的地位。詹纳并不是发现疫苗接种的人，但他是第一个证明这种技术能为抵御天花提供可靠防御的人。它也是抵御其他疾病的可靠防御手段，如小儿麻痹症、麻疹和新生儿破伤风，尽管詹纳在世时并不知晓这一点。
