Defeating the Ministers of Death
Page 34
A ‘royal touch’ was said to protect the recipient against scrofula, a form of tuberculosis. Here the young Samuel Johnson, later a distinguished literary figure, receives this somewhat unreliable protection from Queen Anne in London in 1712. (Alamy)
In the early 1900s, researchers found that injecting diphtheria toxin into a horse caused the animal to produce antibodies. In turn the antibodies could be used to create an antitoxin that would protect humans from the disease. (Library of Congress)
By the early 1930s, a vaccine based on a toxoid – a toxin weakened with heat and drugs – had replaced diphtheria antitoxin as the most effective treatment. (Library of Congress)
The Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian document dating from 1600 BC – and possibly much earlier – contains the first known description of the symptoms of tetanus. (Wikimedia Commons)
An infant aged 11 months being ventilated for measles pneumonia. He eventually recovered from this life-threatening illness. Though often regarded as a mild disease, measles is in fact a killer. Before the advent of a vaccine, 2.6 million children worldwide died of the disease every year. (David Isaacs)
Anti-vaccination campaigner Andrew Wakefield, flanked by his supporters, gives a statement to the press outside the General Medical Council headquarters in London in 2010. (Alamy)
Great Australians: scientist and Nobel laureate Sir Macfarlane Burnet (left) meets Sir Norman Gregg, the ophthalmologist who first described babies with congenital rubella syndrome. (State Library of Victoria)
Ian Frazer (left) and Jian Zhou (right) developed the world’s first human papillomavirus vaccine at the University of Queensland. In countries where the vaccine has been administered widely, the incidence of cervical cancer has fallen dramatically. (Courtesy of Ian Frazer)
Bill and Melinda Gates in 1998 at the launch of the Children’s Vaccine Program, which led in turn to the creation of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Today, millions of children owe their lives to immunisations delivered by Gavi. (Getty Images)
Professor Mark Kendall of the University of Queensland displaying his ‘nanopatch’. This tiny patch covered in microscopic needles efficiently and painlessly delivers a vaccine to the abundant immune cells just under the skin. (Courtesy of Mark Kendall)
About the Author
DAVID ISAACS is a consultant paediatrician at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, in Sydney, and Clinical Professor in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Sydney. He has been a member of all of Australia’s national immunisation advisory committees for the last 25 years. David has a passion for bioethics, and has published and taught extensively on ethical aspects of immunisation.
Copyright
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First published in Australia in 2019
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Cover image: Lymphangioma circumscriptum affecting the skin under the eye, St Bartholomew’s Hospital Archives & Museum, Wellcome Collection