La vaccinazione prima di Jenner: i precursori

Abstract

The article, after a reference to the first grafting techniques for the prevention of smallpox, wants to highlight the presence, in the second half of the eighteenth century, several years before Edward Jenner, of some precursors of vaccination or some acute observers, who were the first to notice that accidental contact with animals infected with cowpox induced a state of immunization against subsequent epidemics of human smallpox. Among them are mentioned Fewster, Jetsy, Plett, Pommier-Rabaut and other precursors of the technique of immunization against smallpox through the use of the secretion of cowpox vesicles. Unfortunately, despite the successes obtained, these precursors did not deepen their discoveries, which remained in an embryonic state lacking the fundamental steps of research. We have to get to the end of the eighteenth century to find confirmation of the usefulness of vaccination in Jenner’s experiments.