A Terrible Person Does Terrible Things to Save Humanity from a Terrible Disease

The story of how English Physician Edward Jenner "invented" the smallpox vaccine is oft told. He noted that there was one population of persons that were never infected with smallpox, milkmaids. It turns out that the milkmaids would get infected with a different but similar virus, cowpox (cowpox virus is also referred to as Vaccinia though in truth it is only related to Vaccinia with both belonging to the Genus Orthopoxvirus), which provided protection against infection with the deadly small pox virus (Variola virus, also a member of Genus Orthopoxvirus). From this one observation came the birth of the first successfully developed vaccine. It is a vaccine which would lead to the elimination of a truly terrible disease that had been a scourge of humanity since ancient times. The first recorded smallpox epidemic occurred in 1350 B.C.E., during the Egyptian-Hittite War. In 430 B.C.E., the second year of the Peloponnesian War, smallpox hit Athens and killed more than 30,000 people, reducing the population by 20 percent. Even into modern times, before Jenner's vaccine, when a case of smallpox was discovered in a particular community, the standard operating procedure was to burn it to the ground. The disease was that feared.

While that heroic story is heard again and again from grade school to graduate school, especially if one pursues a scientific or medical education, the tale of how he came to develop and test his vaccine is much less known and not nearly as heroic. In fact, you could go so far as to say it is the exact opposite of heroic and then multiply that by infinity+1. It is, in actuality, truly, terrible. Downright awful, perhaps one of the worst stories you will ever hear. Get ready because I am about to relay this unbelievably terrible tale. Edward Jenner tested his novel vaccine on orphans he had purchased specifically for that reason. Let's start by stipulating that purchasing human beings is a truly terrible thing. It is about as bad as it gets. Really, really, bad. But the terribleness gets kicked up a few levels when those purchased humans are children, orphan children no less. And finally, the coup de grace of terribleness, just when you thought it could not get any more terrible. Dr. Jenner purposely infected his purchased orphans with a virus known to cause one of the most horrible, terrible, painful, awful diseases of all time after having injected them with a vaccine he had developed of unknown efficacy or toxicity. My God man, it blows the mind just trying to comprehend the level of terribleness such a thing requires of a person. How awful would it have been if his vaccine did not work and all the orphans died slow painful deaths? Not at all awful for good Dr. Jenner apparently. Heck, if you are gonna purchase orphans why not just go all the way and use them in reckless life endangering experiments while you are at it. I mean, what else are you gonna use 'em for? And if I don't purchase them and use them to experiment on, some other asshole is just gonna purchase them and use them as sex slaves, what a waste that would be, eh?

There can be no doubt that Edward Jenner's vaccine has prevented untold suffering and saved countless lives. There can also be no doubt that he was a truly terrible person who did truly terrible things in his discovery of that vaccine. That such things were "acceptable" at that time in history does not in the least lessen the terribleness of those things. No heroes are perfect, but some heroes are so terrible that they forfeit all rights to credit for the heroic deeds they did perform. I submit that Edward Jenner is such is such a person and despite the great good he did for all humanity he deserves no praise for it.