Penguins of Madagascar and the Smallpox Vaccine
The Anthropocene Reviewed
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The Story of the World's First Vaccine
In 17 96, a brilliant young doctor named edward jenner noticed that young women who milked cows for a living seemed to be immune to smallpox. Jenner also observed that milkmaids were routinely infected with a relatively mild disease called cow pox. Having made this discovery, jenner borrowed the eight year old son of his gardener and then put some puss from a cow pox pustule into the boy's wound. The boy got a fever, but recovered, and was thereafter immune to small pox. This story isn't untrue exactly, but like a lot of historical narratives, it deceives via distillation.
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