Natural and artificial induced immunity

...minorities can sometimes be more right than majorities.

(Indeed, emerging ideas are, by definition, minority ideas to start with.)

~ Norman Doidge

Doctor Norman Doidge is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher, author and poet. He lives in Toronto.

I have thoroughly enjoyed and gifted his books:

The Brain That Changes Itself and

The Brain’s Way of Healing.

When Norman Doidge opines on public health policy, I pay attention. I value his professional opinion.

For this reason, I hope my open-minded readers, who are curious to learn more about the history of natural and artificial induction of immunity, take the time to read his recent essay, Needle Points.

Or, tune into Jordan Peterson’s podcast featuring this essay if you prefer to listen.

Following is a brief excerpt.

A key advance occurred when farmers in England in the 1700s noticed that dairymaids who milked cows got “cowpox” on their hands from the udders. Cowpox was a very mild illness compared to smallpox, which had a 30% mortality rate by some estimates. It was observed that the maids with cowpox were immune to the dreaded smallpox. An English cattle breeder named Benjamin Jesty, who had himself contracted cowpox and was thus immune to smallpox, decided—supposedly on the spur of the moment—to intentionally inoculate his wife and children with cowpox. They remained immune to smallpox 15 years later.

The English physician Edward Jenner, learning of this, began systematically exposing patients to cowpox, including an 8-year-old boy named James Phipps. He exposed James to cowpox and then exposed him to smallpox to see if he’d contract it (an experiment conducted quite obviously without informed consent). The boy survived... said Jenner, who reported on the benefits of the procedure in warding off smallpox in a series of cases. He was initially ridiculed for the idea, but in the end, prevailed.