Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver

Front Cover
W. W. Norton & Company, 2007 - 523 pages
A fascinating account of vaccination's miraculous, inflammatory past and its uncertain future. In 1796, as smallpox ravaged Europe, Edward Jenner injected a child with a benign version of the disease, then exposed the child to the deadly virus itself. The boy proved resistant to smallpox, and Jenner's risky experiment produced the earliest vaccination. In this deftly written account, journalist Arthur Allen reveals a history of vaccination that is both illuminated with hope and shrouded by controversy--from Jenner's discovery to Pasteur's vaccines for rabies and cholera, to those that safeguarded the children of the twentieth century, and finally to the tumult currently surrounding vaccination. Faced with threats from anthrax to AIDS, we are a vulnerable population and can no longer depend on vaccines; numerous studies have linked childhood vaccination with various neurological disorders, and our pharmaceutical companies are more attracted to the profits of treatment than to the prevention of disease. With narrative grace and investigative journalism, Allen explores our shifting understanding of vaccination since its creation. 16 pages of illustrations.

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Contents

I
11
II
23
IV
25
V
46
VI
70
VIII
113
IX
115
X
160
XV
251
XVI
294
XVII
327
XVIII
371
XIX
421
XX
443
XXI
445
XXII
499

XII
215
XIV
249

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