|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Vaccines at Work
| Article
# : |
11069 |
|
|
Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
|
| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1986 |
4,026 Words |
| Author
: |
Michael Woods
Michael Woods, a contributing editor for THE WORLD & I, has
received numerous science-writing awards. |
In the annals of medical advances that have improved human health and longevity, few if any can rival the sweeping impact of the relatively simple and inexpensive technique introduced 190 years ago by a country doctor, a milkmaid and an eight-year-old boy.
The technique is vaccination.
Vaccines already have stilled most of the great epidemic diseases, the pestilences, and scourges that swept unchallenged across the face of the earth for thousands of years.
Smallpox, one of the most devastating and feared diseases in human history, has been eradicated by vaccination--completely eliminated from the planet. Smallpox once struck virtually everyone, sparing neither prince nor pauper. Avoiding infection was so rare that London police in the eighteenth century used the term "not pock-marked" as a distinctive characteristic useful in identifying wanted criminals. Smallpox victims lucky enough to survive were left pathetically disfigured, the face deeply pitted with scars, or blind. The unlucky died--60 million in Europe alone in the eighteenth century.
Vaccines have almost transformed other diseases such as diphtheria and poliomyelitis into medical curiosities. Once diphtheria struck with such cruel consistency that it was called "the scourge of the nursery." And a scourge it was. For the disease killed by enveloping the child's throat in a thick, grayish-white membrane that caused suffocation. Mothers hesitated to count among their families the children who had not yet had the disease.
Vaccines have brought peace of mind to modern parents, as well, by nearly conquering polio, perhaps the most feared disease of the mid-twentieth century. Polio was epidemic by 1955, the year when Dr. Jonas E. Salk's vaccine was introduced. The disease struck more than 31,000 children each year, leaving many paralyzed for life. The Salk vaccine, and an oral polio vaccine developed by Dr. Albert B. Sabin, virtually eliminated the disease. Only those who had failed to be vaccinated were susceptible.
The impact of vaccines can be counted in terms other than improved health and happiness. For these miracle drugs have added years to the average life expectancy and saved uncountable billions of dollars in health care costs. Consider, for example, their contributions in extending human life expectancy. Life expectancy at birth has risen by more than 30 years since
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
