From Cows to Cures
The story of vaccines—coined from the Latin word for cow—begins in 1796.
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 The Edward Jenner Museum, jennermuseum.com |
1796Edward Jenner discovers that cowpox virus injected in humans prevents smallpox. He coins the word vaccine from vacca, Latin for cow. |
 Courtesy Institut Pasteur |
1885Louis Pasteur injects his untested rabies vaccine into Joseph Meister, the victim of an attack by a rabid dog. The nine-year-old recovers. |
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1921A toxoid vaccine is developed to combat diphtheria. Though the poisons produced by the bacteria are neutralized, the body creates antibodies in response to their presence. |
 By permission of the family of Jonas Salk/March of Dimes |
1954Jonas Salk tests his polio vaccine on more than 600,000 subjects, using inactivated (dead) polio virus. In 1955 the vaccine is licensed for mass inoculations. |
 Laguna Design/Photo Researchers Inc. |
1955Cutter Laboratories mistakenly produces two lots of polio vaccines containing virulent polio virus. At least 164 people are permanently paralyzed and 10 die. |
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1961An oral polio vaccine, developed by Albert Sabin, is licensed. Unlike Salk’s, this vaccine uses a live, attenuated virus, which requires no boosters. |
 Alfred Pasieka/Photo Researchers, Inc. |
1963A vaccine against measles, developed by Maurice Hilleman, is licensed; it’s the beginning of the end to a scourge affecting hundreds of thousands of children each year. |
 Courtesy Merck |
1967Hilleman’s mumps vaccine, begun with a swab from his daughter’s throat, is licensed, and the first dose, of an estimated 150 million to date, is administered. |
 James Gathany/CDC |
1977Five years after routine smallpox vaccinations cease in the United States, the last known natural case is reported in Somalia. |
 Prashant Panjiar/Courtesy The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation |
1999The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation helps form the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations. The foundation’s contributions to GAVI total nearly $1 billion. |
 Courtesy Merck |
2006Gardasil, a vaccine against some types of human papillomavirus (HPV), is licensed, offering protection from one known cause of cervical cancer. |
 Karen Kasmauski/Getty Images |
2008AIDS researchers from around the world will gather in October in Cape Town to discuss one of the most pressing—and frustrating—vaccine challenges. |
