Artificial induction of immunity

Vaccination is the chief type of such immunization, greatly reducing the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases.

Founded on a germ theory of infectious diseases, as demonstrated by Louis Pasteur's discoveries, modern medicine has provided means for inducing immunity against a widening range of diseases to prevent the associated risks from the wild infections.

[1] It is hoped that further understanding of the molecular basis of immunity will translate to improved clinical practice in the future.

[2] The earliest recorded artificial induction of immunity in humans was by variolation or inoculation, which is the controlled infection of a subject with a less lethal natural form of smallpox (known as Variola Minor) to make him or her immune to re-infection with the more lethal natural form, Variola Major.

This was practiced in ancient times in China and India, and imported into Europe, via Turkey, around 1720 by Lady Montagu and perhaps others.

[3][5][6][7][8][9] In 1796, Edward Jenner FRS, a doctor and scientist who had practiced variolation, performed an experiment based on the folk-knowledge that infection with cowpox, a disease with minor symptoms which was never fatal, also conferred immunity to smallpox.

He is credited with being the first to start detailed investigations of the subject and of bringing it to the attention of the medical profession.

In a brave piece of rapid medicine development, he probably saved the life of a person who had been bitten by a clearly rabid dog by performing the same inactivating process upon his rabies preparation and then inoculating the patient with it.

However, adding certain substances to the mixture, for example adsorbing tetanus toxoid onto alum, greatly enhances the immune response (see Roitt etc.

Synthetic (recombinant or cell-clone) human immunoglobulins can now be made, and for several reasons (including the risk of prion contamination of biological materials) are likely to be used more and more often.