Never mind. I did some googling after posting this and I understand the history now. Variolation was indeed practiced widely before Jenner began using cowpox.
And if you are not sure who to talk to, look for someone with a metal brace on their leg.
Yes, variolation (a.k.a. inoculation) was performed for a long time before the discovery that cowpox (vaccinia) induced a protective immune reaction against smallpox.
With inoculation, material/pus from smallpox lesions was introduced into the skin (i.e. via a needle puncture) or inhaled, generally producing a milder case of smallpox than if you got it naturally. Unfortunately, sometimes the disease caused by inoculation was severe enough to kill the patient, which explains why vaccination caught on fast.
By the way, those antivaxers who whine about why there isn’t a “vaccinated vs. unvaccinated” study, besides ignoring ethical and study design* problems, overlook the fact that there’ve been multiple such studies, with results showing that the two groups had similar health outcomes, except that the vaccinated group had a much lower incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases.
*since there are far fewer unvaccinated than vaccinated kids, retrospective studies have to deal with unequally sized study groups plus difficulty with confounding variables, in order to come up with meaningful comparisons.
Yes, and I already answered my own question in post #381.
I’m glad everyone is now educated in the differences between vaccination and variolation. But the interesting part of this story was that even when variolation had real serious side effects (like the 1% death rate mentioned) it was still a better choice than leaving the soldiers to get smallpox and die at a very high rate.
The spread of variolation was helped by these soldiers returning home and testifying to their immunity.
You mean, before they developed autism.
Amazing how that can happen even as one is preparing and posting a response. 
And whatever you do, don’t vaccinate your pets
Wow. So much willful ignorance.
In the letters column of that article, there is an anti-pet-vax letter from “Healing Touch Vets”. I went to their website and I think I understand why they oppose it-it would interfere with all their other [del]scams[/del]treatments:
Yeah, I found that a good portion of the anti-vaxxers on Twitter were herbal medicine sellers or homeopaths. You know, real scientists. :rolleyes:
I noted that a homeopath talking about vaccines was like an astrologer giving an opinion on the Big Bang Theory.
I’ve seen that before, the bit about pet acupuncture. I was appalled when I first heard about it and am still shocked that it is not a prohibited, as opposed to not addressed in law, practice. Same goes for that other bullshit humorously masquerading as medical treatment, chiropractic.
And then there’s antivaxer David Stephan, found guilty of neglect in the death of his young son from meningitis (the “natural” remedies didn’t help), who’s been involved in pushing dubious supplements.
Now that a second trial in the case is looming, he wants Canadian taxpayers to fork over $4 million for his legal fees.
Couple charged in child's death want millions from Alberta government for their defence | CBC News
Chickenpox is not routinely vaccinated against in the UK. It’s still common over here, if anyone needs a comparison.
I found out my airhead co-worker is antivax today. She was complaining to me, clearly expecting sympathy, about how much trouble she’d had trying to board her dog for an upcoming holiday. ‘I didn’t vaccinate my kids, I’m hardly going to vaccinate the dog!’
I couldn’t say it then, due to the whole ‘being at work’ thing, so I’ll say it here: Rachel, you’re a fuckwit. A life-endangering self righteous moronic dipshit. Grow the fuck up.
A coworker of mine who is leaving for gross incompetence got into how awful the flu shot is yesterday. His ignorance wasn’t even anti-vax talking points, he just literally had no idea what he was talking about, to an embarrassing degree. I’m the new guy, so I was cautious and phrased my response as, “There’s a lot of information on Vaccines, and it’s actually really interesting,” instead of what I wanted to say, which was, “Everything you just said is dangerous misinformation, stop being such a daft cunt.”
Of course there are studies. Drugs, including vaccines, don’t make it to the market without an entire series of studies. These begin with animal studies, and then proceed to human subjects.
These studies are ludicrously easy to find, with less than a minute using a search engine.
Study looking at efficacy of Mumps, Measles and Rubella vaccine with children
Here’s another one. A multi-year study looking at measles vaccine effectiveness.
Sadly, there is no known vaccine, yet, for willful ignorance.
Foxglove tea has potential as an herbal remedy, though.
Just in case someone reading this isn’t aware of your subtle sense of humor, I feel obligated to state: