History of Variola virus

The orthopoxvirus Variola virus is the only member species of the Orthopoxvirus genus which is a solely human pathogen.

Variola virus was the only species of smallpox known until late in the nineteenth century, when a new type of mild smallpox, subsequently named Variola minor, was recognized in Southern Africa and the West Indies and later spread to Brazil, North America and parts of Europe.

During the mid 1930s, Ernst Ruska and his colleagues turned the electron microscope they invented to the study of viruses. In 1958, Dr P von Magnus and his colleagues at the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen discovered an orthopoxvirus from the skin lesions of a cynomolgus monkey during an outbreak of a pox disease in their laboratory monkeys.

It was a new orthopoxvirus, which they called ‘monkeypox virus’.

Variola major and Variola minor were only reliable differentiated in the laboratory in the late 1950s. A related virus with similar, but distinct characteristics intermediate between Variola major and Variola minor, with fatality rate of about 12, was first distinguished by Bedson and his colleagues in East and West African in 1963. It was labeled as Variola intermedius.

The term variola was derived in AD 570 by Bishop Marius of Avenches (near Lausanne, Switzerland) from the Latin varius, meaning spotted, or perhaps from another Latin term equally descriptive of the disease, varus, meaning pimple.

The original smallpox vaccine was derived from the work of Edward Jenner, a rural physician in 1798, who discovered that scab material from cowpox lesions on dairy cows could be used to inoculate naïve individuals who became immune to infection by variola virus. Jenner described the clinical signs of cowpox in cattle, and humans and how human infection provided protection against smallpox.
History of Variola virus

History of Immunology

History of Immunology
Ancient Times
Immunology studies the relationship between the body systems, pathogens, and immunity. Primitive man knew about disease and its ravages. The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh (2000 B.C. – Mesopotamian hero) records the presence of pestilence and disease. The other writings from old dynasties of ancient Egypt, one finds even more descriptions of disease. They even can identify the disease. In those days, disease and pestilence was punishment rendering as a result of “bad deeds” or “evil thoughts”. Even in the Old Testament is filled with pestilence that God wrought upon those who “crossed” him. From these writings, it is equally apparent that man knew that once he had been afflicted with disease, if he survived, he was normally not able to contract it again.

In 430 B.C. Thucydides recorded that while the plaque was raging in Athens, the sick and dying would have received no attention had it not been for those individuals who had already contracted the disease and recovered and recognized their “immune” status. Beginning around 1000 A.D., the ancient Chinese practiced a form of immunization by inhaling dried powders derived from the crusts of smallpox lesions. Around the fifteenth century, a practice of applying powdered smallpox "crusts" and inserting them with a pin or “poking” device into the skin became commonplace. The process was referred to as variolation and became quite common in the Middle East. However, the primary intent of variolation was that of “preserving” the beauty of their daughters and no mention was made of saving lives.

Modern Times
In 1798, Edward Jenner inoculated a young man by named James Phipps with material obtained from a cowpox lesion. The results were conclusive but were met with great resistance by the Church.

It is the first demonstration of vaccination (smallpox vaccination). Jenner was a physician who practiced in the rural English countryside. As a country doctor, he was familiar with the region’s medical “old wives tales.” One of which was that milkmaids who had caught cowpox never became infected with the more serious smallpox. Jenner suspected there to be a connection between the fact that milkmaids were commonly known to get cowpox, but not smallpox. That’s why he decided to try this theory by pacing the scab from a cowpox lesion into a cut made in arm of a young man James Phipps.

In 1840 the first modern proposal of the germ theory of disease was proposed Jakob Henle. He was a German physician, pathologist and anatomist. He is credited with the discovery of the loop of Henle in the kidney.

Louis Pasteur played a pivotal role in the evolution of the science. While Pasteur's work at the Pasteur Institute in Paris was concerned with bacterial infectious disease, he was most concerned with the prevention of diseases that bacteria caused and how the human body was changed subsequent to infection so as to resist further insults. Louis Pasteur became the first experimental immunologist.

In 1900, Paul Ehrlich who was a German Scientist proposed antibody formation theory. Ehrlich predicted autoimmunity calling it “horror autotoxicus”. He is the one coined the term of “chemotherapy”.

Kendall A. Smith in 1983 discovered of the first interleukins 1 and 2.
History of Immunology

Chickenpox

Chickenpox
Chickenpox, also known as varicella, is a very contagious disease caused by the varicella-zoster virus. It is spread easily through the air by infected people when they sneeze or cough.

The disease also spreads through contact with an infected person's chickenpox blisters. People who have never had chickenpox can get infected just by being in a room with someone who has the disease.

There was also some confusion about the name chicken pox. Some said that this disease was named this way because the blisters that you have on your skin when suffering from chicken pox actually look like the person was peaked by chickens.

However, there is another theory on the name chicken pox that seems more plausible. Because the disease does not pose any grave danger on the patient, it can be described as a smaller version of another disease called the pox. So the smaller version is the "chicken " version, thus the name chicken pox.


Giovanni Filippo (1510-1580) of Palermo gave the first description Chicken Pox. In 1600s, English Physician named Richard Morton mistook this disease with small pox he thought it was a milder form of smallpox.

In 1767, William Heberden, a physician, also from England, demonstrated that small pox was different from chicken pox. In modern times, the scientists who first described the chickenpox were E.Paschen, 1919; EE Tyzzer, 1906; von Bokay 1909.
Chickenpox