Before the Polio Vaccine
Exploration of Vaccines can be traced back all the way back to smallpox. Edward Jenner, who is responsible for a practical vaccination against smallpox. He observed how the dairy maids contracted cowpox, but then later did not contract small pox. Using what he observed from the dairy maids, he inoculated a young boy with pus from a cowpox pustules, and the boy developed cowpox. Weeks later he inoculated the boy again but not with cowpox, but smallpox. The disease however failed to develop. This discovery helped promote smallpox vaccinations and gave future scientists research to help them while they were exploring vaccines. Like the Polio vaccine.
Before the Polio vaccine, scientists had been exploring and developing different vaccines to prevent life threatening diseases caused by bacteria like typhoid and diphtheria. John Franklin Enders and several others discovered the ability of the poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissues. This discovery enabled scientists to grow polio viruses in quantities sufficient to produce effective vaccines.
Before the Polio vaccine, scientists had been exploring and developing different vaccines to prevent life threatening diseases caused by bacteria like typhoid and diphtheria. John Franklin Enders and several others discovered the ability of the poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissues. This discovery enabled scientists to grow polio viruses in quantities sufficient to produce effective vaccines.
Jonas Salk's exploration of Vaccines
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Jonas Salk was born on October 28,1914. His second year at medical school, he received a fellowship to work in a laboratory. There he studied bacteria and viruses. This was the start of his exploration of vaccines. The vaccines that were being made to fight different life threatening diseases were being made from killed bacteria. The killed bacteria cannot cause the disease. To fight against diseases caused by viruses a live virus vaccine was needed. But at the time they were unsure of how to create a live virus vaccine to fight polio remained a mystery. During his senor year at medical school, Jonas was given the choice to choose a two-month work-study program in the field of their choice. Salk chose a research laboratory that at the time was experimenting with the influenza virus. While