Earlier Vaccines

I could have sworn I posted this yesterday, but I guess I didn't.

Anyway, lets suppose that vaccination or variolation is developed earlier than in our history. What are some likely points at which it could happen? What are some likely effects?

For the introduction itself, it would seem easiest to just rely on one of the great men of medicine, like Galen, Rhazes, or Avicenna. Galen's particularly a good choice, because he dealt with the Antonine plague, which was quite possibly smallpox.

As for effects, I'm inclined to doubt that, in and of itself, such an earlier invention would lead to any great increase in population. However, knock-off effects could lead to that same effect, indirectly. More urbanized populations would be possible, increasing trade, and all the associated factors with that. It might help tip the scales of the sedentary vs. nomadic struggle of history, a bit earlier.
 
Rather than ancient physicians and theorists, that had a really different approach of the discipline, I would rather see an importation of inoculation practice from India after the Arabo-Islamic conquests, slowing spreading it to Mediterranea/Europe in the XIII at best or after the Black Death (having appearing during this would backfire, as it would be rather unefficient as a method). Eventually, it would be adopted by western Christians (after the Black Death if introducted in Arabo-Islamic world in the XIII century, more quickly after).

Proper vaccination would need an approach similar to scientific method, not before the XVII in Europe (approximatly when inoculation method just began to be, sparcely, mentioned OTL)

An interesting backfire, due to the more loose administrative structure and less semi/mandatory vaccinations, could be more resistant bacterian strains at the end.
 
Well, as to who, the smallpox/cowpox linkage could have been picked up on , literally any time. It's one of those "Wait. What? Say that again " moments. "Wait. What? Milkmaids never get smallpox" .

Could have happened any time, anywhere that has smallpox and cows.

Effects? Depending on the when, lots and lots. Lots of people, some pretty influential, died of small pox.

Would it drive discovery of other vaccines? Not so confident of that.
 
An interesting backfire, due to the more loose administrative structure and less semi/mandatory vaccinations, could be more resistant bacterian strains at the end.

Actually less vaccination would probably slow that process down, the real reason we're starting to see Superbugs pop-up is because we've spent a century flooding peoples bodies with the drugs and stuff that kill them, thus giving them a very ample chance to evolve faster than normal to become immune.
 
Actually less vaccination would probably slow that process down, the real reason we're starting to see Superbugs pop-up is because we've spent a century flooding peoples bodies with the drugs and stuff that kill them, thus giving them a very ample chance to evolve faster than normal to become immune.

Does it works the same way with bacteria strains and/or virus? I don't really know how it works, I tought having only partial vaccination gave more room to disease to grow resistent to the practice?
 
Rather than ancient physicians and theorists, that had a really different approach of the discipline, I would rather see an importation of inoculation practice from India after the Arabo-Islamic conquests, slowing spreading it to Mediterranea/Europe in the XIII at best or after the Black Death (having appearing during this would backfire, as it would be rather unefficient as a method). Eventually, it would be adopted by western Christians (after the Black Death if introducted in Arabo-Islamic world in the XIII century, more quickly after).

Proper vaccination would need an approach similar to scientific method, not before the XVII in Europe (approximatly when inoculation method just began to be, sparcely, mentioned OTL)

An interesting backfire, due to the more loose administrative structure and less semi/mandatory vaccinations, could be more resistant bacterian strains at the end.
I don't think inoculation is going to be enough. After all, smallpox continued to devastate India until after Jenner's smallpox vaccine was developed. And I don't think it would be a matter of efficiency with the Black Plague, because I don't think you can even inoculate for that. You'd just be making people sick.
 
I didn't said inoculation would be enough, I pointed that it was somewhat easier to "import" it from India and then managing to discover vaccination from it, rather than having the former appearing spontaneously and independently.
 
Does it works the same way with bacteria strains and/or virus? I don't really know how it works, I tought having only partial vaccination gave more room to disease to grow resistent to the practice?

The whole point is to introduce the virus (or similar virus) to the body in a controlled fashion and let the body build its own immunity to the disease. I'm not quite certain how well this encourages evolution of the virus itself, but I'm pretty confident that smallpox isn't evolving much anymore. And other commonly vaccinated diseases, such as the flu, are so in flux anyway that it doesn't really matter. Of course, since all vaccines are based on the diseases that they're designed to fight, it doesn't really matter all that much how quickly the disease evolves, so long as the basic fundamentals of vaccination are understood.

As to the black death, I know that there is a Yersinia Pestis vaccine, but I've no idea when it was developed.
 
Getting a vaccine for smallpox turned out to be incredibly easy, because there was a related, less harmful, virus around (sometimes, some places).

Note, however that diagnoses of individual diseases is a pretty modern thing. If you have a preventative for Smallpox, and your physicians cant/dont distinguish between the various poxes (eg, small, great=syphilis, chicken, etc), vaccinating everyone with cowpox wont protect against syphilis and chicken pox, and the idea will be discredited.

The Orthopoxes (smallpox, camelpox, cowpox, monkeypox, etc), have a LOT of cross immunity, despite being quite different viruses. Whereas eg flu, having one strain is minimal protection against the next.
 
As JedidiahStott said inoculation of smallpox could have been discovered at any time through out history. All it would have required is a bit more observation or trial and error. Seeing how simple it is it's actually kind of awful it took us so long to figure out.

As to what impact it would have, well the effects would be immediate. Smallpox was one of the biggest killers in history. Even with a marginally effective inoculation millions of people who should have died wouldn't while a handful who would live now die from the inoculations. Just reducing the effect of smallpox by a little would completely change the course of history. Plagues that would wipe out cities don't happen, empires that would be weakened now stand tall. Depending on when the discovery occurred I think it probably would lead to a better understanding of disease theory. It's going to be hard to argue miasmas or bad air cause disease with such an obvious argument against in the smallpox inoculations.
 
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