NFS382H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Postpartum Infections, Agostino Bassi, Microorganism
Document Summary
The realization that microbes were responsible for many human diseases. The most important medical discovery in history and has, by far, saved more lives than any other discovery. Was not discovered by one person, rather an accumulation of evidence from many different people from different countries, the people include: People ended up getting sick and dying but those who did survive developed immunity to subsequent infections. There was a legend that people who got cowpox from their cows were not affected by smallpox, so jenner took the pus from a cowpox pustule which ended up protecting against exposure to smallpox. Using a less virulent disease to prevent a more virulent one is now called vaccination (comes from the latin word for cow). He developed the first truly effective intervention against a microbial disease. It"s important to realize that he had no clue what he was working with, since no one knew about microbes back then.
