When we think of vaccine, we think of injections. But when 18th century medical men thought of vaccine, they thought of cows. That’s because “vaccinae” is Latin for “of or pertaining to cows”, and the word entered the modern medical lexicon through the title of the famous 1798 work by Edward Jenner, “An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a Disease discovered in some of the Western Counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and known by the name of the Cow-Pox.”
Many generations of admiring doctors and historians have noted this title without observing that Jenner was engaged in a bit of sleight of hand. The disease he described was, indeed known as the Cow Pox by those who had bothered to give it a name: the dairymaids and farmers who were most susceptible to it. The disease, as he noted, appears on the nipples of cows, and then is communicated to the dairymaids, and then “through the farm, until most of the cattle and domestics feel its unpleasant consequences”. It was Jenner, perhaps after consultation with his medical mentors, like John Hunter, who gave it the Latin name, starting with Variolae – the Latin medical term for smallpox -- and adding to it the designation Vaccinae – of or from cows. More
The Secretary of Health of the state of Washington 
Cholera is one of those diseases that you really don’t want to get. It begins like any other intestinal illness, with abdominal cramps, nausea, and vomiting. Suddenly, a very profuse, watery diarrhea develops. So much water leaves the body through the diarrhea that the person’s mouth becomes dry. He stops urinating because he has no fluid left. Eyes become sunken, and the sufferer loses his energy. During the course of the disease, a person with cholera may pass as many as 13 US gallons (or 50 liters) of fluid. Left untreated, cholera can kill a person in a matter of hours to days from severe dehydration. 
It has been a little more than 100 years since the discovery of viruses by Martinus Beijerinck. In that time, more than 5,000 different viruses have been discovered and studied. One of those viruses, 
What do you think about when someone mentions Benjamin Franklin? Do you think of the statesman, the inventor, the man with the kite in the thunderstorm, or the first Postmaster General? Among his many activities and accomplishments, Benjamin Franklin also managed to include a little bit of 
Varicella, or chickenpox, used to be a common childhood infection. Today’s grandparents and most parents can describe vividly what it was like to have chickenpox or to care for a child with this viral illness. Since the broad use of varicella vaccine, the number of cases in the United States has dropped dramatically. Even infants under the age of 6 months who are too young to get the vaccine have had a 90% drop in their rate of chickenpox since the introduction and widespread use of varicella vaccine. But chickenpox has not completely disappeared.
The History of Vaccines invites you to attend The Wistar Institute Authors Series program “The Modern American Vaccine Debate.” The event will be held Tuesday, April 24, at 6:30 pm at The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia. It is presented as part of the Philadelphia Science Festival. Panelists include Paul Offit, MD, Mark Largent, PhD, Hildegund Ertl, MD, and Jason Schwartz, MBE. The event is free, but registration is required. We hope to see you there – the History of Vaccines will be exhibiting at the event. 
Eighteen years after the sole manufacturer of adenovirus vaccine announced its discontinuation, adenovirus type 7 and type 4 vaccines are once again available for U.S. military trainees. The adenovirus vaccination program resumed in October 2011, with enlisted soldiers receiving the vaccine during basic training. The re-licensure of the vaccine required significant investment by the U.S. government and long years of testing and regulatory review, during which rates of adenovirus illness in the military rose. The history of the vaccine’s disappearance illustrates the precarious position of some of our lesser-used vaccines. 
In June 2010 we ran a 
We set ourselves the task yesterday of examining a set of materials in the College’s Historical Medical Library from the Anti-Vaccination Society of America. This organization was active in the late 1800s and early 1900s, along with a collection of other anti-vaccination leagues of somewhat confusing overlap and origin. The materials we have seem to come from the period that the society was active from the Terre Haute, Indiana, home of Frank D. Blue. Blue served as secretary of the society and seems to have been responsible for much of its day-to-day activity, including editing the society’s periodical, Vaccination. The society’s president at the time, L.H. Piehn, was a Nora Springs, Iowa, banker whose daughter was reported to have died from the effects of smallpox vaccination in 1894. Blue corresponded widely with other anti-vaccination societies, including the American Anti-Vaccination League in New York and societies in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, and England. Moreover, he seems to have been involved with a collection of other reform groups active at the time, including anti-vivisectionists (who often objected to the idea that rabies was an infectious disease), temperance advocates, vegetarians, homeopaths, phrenologists, “scientific palmists,” and a society for the prevention of premature burial (that latter was a particular interest of British anti-vaccinator