Vaccine: The Human Story

In this episode, we chart the WHO smallpox eradication campaign - an international operation of massive manpower, unlikely allies, and sheer human determination. From the concept of "ring-fence" vaccination beginning with forest firefighters in America, to a junior doctor striking a bargain with smugglers on the India-Bangladesh border, it's a story that spans several continents and reveals how people's unique ability to shape the world can, just occasionally, be used for good.

In the final years of the 19th century, a vast crowd takes to the streets of the city of Leicester, in an outburst of anger at the medical and political establishment.

In this episode, we look at the birth of the anti-vaccination movement. With the threat of smallpox absent from our lives, it's difficult to relate to those who resisted the vaccine in the past - but against the backdrop of Victorian class conflict and new sweeping public health measures, the revolutionary new technology became interlinked with concepts of subjugation and control in the minds of many of society's most downtrodden.

At the start of the 19th century, a ship sets sail from Bengal, India, carrying a most peculiar cargo...

In this episode, we look at the development of the smallpox vaccine by an English country doctor, which rapidly eclipsed the earlier practice of inoculation. The cowpox vaccine represented an astonishing new development in public health, but also something of a logistical challenge - how to carry it long distances, across the sea? The answer would ignite a fierce culture war, and inextricably link the new technology to the age's great historical movements of power and empire.

In this Episode of Vaccine, we look at the origins of inoculation, a precursor to vaccination which gave people immunity by deliberately infecting them with a mild case of smallpox.

With origins in medieval China, it became common practices in countries such as India and Turkey in the 16th and 17th centuries, but still remained unheard of in Europe. Its introduction ignited a fierce and colourful culture war, with a cast of characters including doctors, witchfinders, and fashionable ladies of high society.

Today, it’s so difficult for many of us to imagine what it must have felt like to have lived in a time when the spectre of smallpox stalked the streets. And it’s this historical emotion, this forgotten terror, that this episode of Vaccine is going to explore.

Find out about the earliest attempts to treat the disease in the libraries of Baghdad, and along the Silk Road. Hear about the famous Queen of England who suffered with the illness, and was forever scarred by it. Discover what happened when the catastrophe of smallpox arrived in the New World, and find out how the first rays of hope began to pierce the darkness of life under smallpox.

In 1980, the World Health Assembly gathered to announce that one of mankind’s greatest and deadliest enemies had been finally, and completely defeated. That enemy was smallpox.

In this opening episode, we look at the devastating impact of smallpox throughout history, as it wrought havoc on the human race. Discover how a 12th-century samurai drove the demon of smallpox away from the island of Ishima. Find out how the Yoruba people worship the god of smallpox, and in India prayers are given to the goddess Shitala - the one who cools. For centuries, smallpox was a monster, a demon - sometimes even a god. But the first lights of resistance were already being lit.

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Written and narrated by Annie Kelly

Produced by Paul Cooper

Sound engineering by Alexey Sibikin

Voice actors:

Stephen Knowles

Deryn Oliver

Paul Cooper

Rhy Brignell