Works in Progress Podcast The history of vaccines
Nov 26, 2025
Explore the chaotic origins of vaccines, from smallpox to polio, revealing risky experiments and groundbreaking discoveries. Discover Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's role in variolation and the serendipitous insights of Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur. Delve into the dark side of early vaccination methods, including arm-to-arm transfers and animal sacrifices. Hear about crucial advancements like cell culture techniques and the introduction of polio vaccines. This journey through scientific trial and error uncovers the remarkable evolution of immunization.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Vaccines' Massive Historical Impact
- Vaccines saved an estimated 154 million lives over the last 50 years, showing their massive public-health impact.
- Understanding how early vaccines developed explains why that impact required centuries of incremental science.
From Arm-to-Arm To Vaccine Farms
- Early smallpox vaccination relied on arm-to-arm transfer, which risked spreading other infections like syphilis and hepatitis.
- Moving to calf-grown vaccine and later preservation methods removed many of those contamination risks.
Engineering Breakthroughs Enabled Eradication
- Scaling vaccines required new production methods: growing vaccine material on calves, adding glycerin, freeze-drying, and bifurcated needles.
- Those engineering advances turned a crude practice into a globally deployable eradication tool.
