Good morning to my respected teachers, honourable judges, and present out to all my dear friends. My name is Pranisha Rijal and I study in Grade 8. Today, in this fine morning, I'm here to deliver a short speech on the topic, "Smallpox Virus" representing my house, Sagarmatha.
Smallpox was one of the deadly diseases whose permanent cure wasn't found until 1796 AD by Edward Jenner. This disease was caused by the smallpox virus. This virus is believed to have first appeared in around 10,000 BC at the time of the first agricultural settlements in northeastern Africa. This virus was spread all around the world through air and merchants who travelled all around the world.
This virus attacked the skin cells, bone marrow, spleen and lymph nodes of its victims. The unlucky infected developed fever, vomiting and rashes around their body. 30% of the infected people died during the second week of the infection. The survivors bore permanent scars and scabs for the rest of their lives. During the 18th century in Europe, 400,000 people died annually, and one-third of the survivors even went blind. This virus had killed millions of people.
But, smallpox is not an incurable disease. In fact, the temporary solution to smallpox began all the way in 1022 Ad, way before modern medicine. According to a small book called, "The correct treatment of smallpox, a Buddist monk living in the famous mountain named O Mei Shan in the southern province of Sichuan would grind up smallpox scabs and blow the powder in the nostrils of healthy people. She did this after noticing that those who managed to survive smallpox never got it again, and her odd treatment worked. The procedure called variolation slowly evolved and by 1700s doctors were taking materials from sores and putting them into healthy people through 4 or 5 scratches on the arm. This worked pretty well as inoculated people would never get reinfected, but 3% if the people still died after being exposed to the puss.
But how did Edward Jenner get the permanent solution to smallpox?
When Jenner was 13 years old, he was an apprentice to a country surgeon and apothecary in Sodbury, near Briston, he overheard a dairymaid say, " I shall never have smallpox because I have had cowpox."
Cowpox is a skin disease that resembles smallpox and infects cows. Later on in his life as a physician, he realized that the dairymaid was right. Women who got cowpox never got smallpox.
Smallpox and cowpox viruses are from the same family. But when the virus infects an unfamiliar host, in this case, cowpox infecting a human, it is less virulent. So, Jenner decided to conduct an experiment to learn if the cowpox virus can protect humans from smallpox virus. In May 1796 AD, Jenner found a young Dairymaid, Sarah Nemles, who had fresh cowpox lesions on her hand and arm caught the cow named Blossom. Using matter from her pustules, he inoculated James Phipps, the 8-year-old son of his gardener. After a few days of fever and discomfort, the boy recovered. Two months later, Jenner again inoculated James again, this time with matter from fresh smallpox lesions. No disease developed and Jenner concluded that the protection was complete.
Jenner later tried this experiment multiple times with different people, first inoculating them with matter from cowpox lesions and later challenging them with smallpox lesions by assuring them he will take care of them if they were infected with smallpox. No disease was developed in those people. His experiment was a success. With this procedure, Jenner invented the first vaccine, the smallpox vaccine. Vaccination is far less dangerous than variolation for the obvious reason that vaccination used cowpox virus to protect people, unlike variolation which used the actual smallpox virus. Soon people started making more vaccines for different kinds of diseases which worked.
Today, Edward Jenner is known as the father of immunization. But we mustn't forget the people who contributed to the experiment by putting their lives in possible danger by getting inoculated by cowpox virus and later getting inoculated by the smallpox virus.
By saying this much, I would like to conclude this speech. Thank you and have a great day.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N
It is my first school speech. I know got all of this information from the video of TED-ED
This book is just random.
I am going to deliver this speech on 26th May 2019.
