Edward Jenner Essay

It was during this era that Edward Jenner invented a vaccine to prevent smallpox by inoculating a healthy eight-year old boy with cowpox;

Mengele – The doctor violated this principle simply by harming his subjects. Dr. Mengele performed numerous experiments to include surgical procedures without anesthesia, collection and harvesting of tissue samples, and murdering subjects to facilitate a post-mortem examination (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, ND). Dr. Mengele’s experiments demonstrated no beneficence for his subjects.

However, Jenner’s invention became a common practice only a few years after he released it to the public, and according to The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia, “By 1890 smallpox had virtually been eradicated from Britain.” (“Jenner, Edward (1749-1823)”) From the information about the first vaccination, we can see that vaccinations have been proven to eliminate deadly diseases, whether they receive opposition or not. Without immunizations, we would be overcome with diseases, such as smallpox, polio, and measles.

The central ethical conflict when reading The Clara Cell: a Third Reich Eponym by Winkelman and Noack would be taking tissue from the executed prisoners without warning or prior knowledge of approval to use there sample for an experiment. In the article, it mentions how “Clara crossed an ethical line by experimenting on one of the prisoners prior to execution” (Winkelman and Noack, 2009). It is very important for clients to know their rights as well as the client’s family even when they pass away. Although his findings were significant, there were many ethical violations that Dr. Clara violated. Dr. Clara clearly did not take account the feelings of the prisoner’s families and friends when conducting this study nor of the people who were kept imprisoned by the Nazi Regime, which he ultimately violated many APA code of ethics.

Jenner’s discovery of the link between cowpox and smallpox was significant to the development of a vaccine for smallpox. However, it can be argued that Jenner and his discovery were not enough on their own to bring medical progress. The factors Scientific thinking, Government Communication and Changing attitudes played a major and important role to bring medical progress.

Frankenstein is a fictional story, however the universal theme of lack of ethics in scientific experimentation can be pulled from this story and applied to modern times. During World War 2, Nazi scientists performed grueling experiments, utterly blinded by what they were doing in a pursuit to learn the secrets of life. Joseph Mengele, infamously known as the “Angel of Death”, engaged in human

Perret, Françoise. "The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code George J. Annas and Michael A. Grodin, The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code — Human Rights in Human Experimentation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992, 371 Pp. plus Lists, a Diagram and Photographs." International Review of the Red Cross 35.305 (1995): 227-28. Web.

The Holocaust in World War II is one the many cases of genocide. Millions of people were killed, or injured during the war. People were held in places called concentration camps. In the camps, people were dehumanized. They were treated like animals, and hurt. Sometimes they were even put through unethical treatments and medical experiments. Medical experiments are often talked about during times of war, as most of the time they are unethical, and a crime against humanity, as in the case of the experiments during the Holocaust. The medical experiments, and the trials that followed were the first trials for the crimes against humanity. The medical experiments of the Holocaust were a horrendous crime against humanity because they needlessly slaughtered

When the second world war ended, the Nuremberg Code was developed. This code, which was created after the horrible experiments done by Nazis came to light, stated that researchers had to follow ten rules (Schuler, 1982).

In 1796, Edward Jenner created the first vaccine, but his discovery was an accident. Even though his discovery was an accident, Jenner’s discovery had revolutionized the medical world, and since his discovery, many more vaccines have been created. These vaccines can be very beneficial, so people should get vaccinated because it prevents diseases, stops outbreaks, prevents isolation among people, and exceeds the risks associated with vaccines.

Over many of years the world has faced problems concerning health. Many scientists and health experts have worked together to better our nation 's health care. English Physician and Scientist Edward Jenner, a small country doctor, who is well known around the world for his innovative contribution to immunization and the ultimate eradication of smallpox. (2005, Baylor University Medical Center.) It is believed that smallpox appeared around 10,000 B.C. Smallpox was introduced to Europe sometime between the fifth and seventh centuries and was frequently epidemic during the Middle Ages. Edward Jenner was born on May 17, 1749, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. During his early school years, Edward developed a strong interest in science and nature that continued throughout his life. Jenner’s interest in natural history and animal biology sharpened his medical understanding of the role of human-animal trans-species boundaries in disease transmission. He experienced the proverbial “Eureka”-like moment sometime during the 1770s. At age 13 he was apprenticed to a country surgeon and apothecary in Sodbury, near Bistol. The record shows that it was there Jenner heard a dairymaid say, " I shall never have smallpox for I have had cowpox. I shall never have an ugly pockmarked face." While Jenner 's interest in the effects of cowpox began during his apprenticeshire with George Harwickle, it wasn 't until 1796 before he made the first step in a long process of smallpox would be exposed. Jenner

The Nuremberg Doctor’s trial of 1946 involves human experimentation performed by the Nazi doctors. These physicians were accused of conducting torturous “experiments” with concentration camp inmates. During these studies, physicians conducted treatments that were not permitted and caused severe injuries to the participants, and in some cases, participants died as a result of this. Prisoners were left to freeze to study more on hypothermia. Later, during December 9th, 1946 to August 20th, 1947 representatives establish a Nuremberg trial to prosecuted these doctors for the atrocities that they committed and 23 out 15 were found guilty. As a result, the Nuremberg code was created to

Without the Nuremberg Code there was many contradictories in the field of science that was cruel to humanity. For example, many experiments done in the Nazi Experimentations were completely unnecessary and resulted in tons of deaths. An article about the sun lamp experiment states, “The victims were placed under sunlamps which were so hot they would burn the skin. One young homosexual victim was repeatedly cooled to unconsciousness then revived with lamps until he was pouring with sweat. He died one evening after several test sessions” (“Medical Experiments”). This experiment wasn’t justified with any reasonable explanation for why it was done. They should of stopped when he went unconscious the first time instead of continuously torturing him by repeating the procedure. Another time the Nazi scientists went to far was with the twin cases. The article later says, “After three weeks of tortuous medical examinations they were taken to the dissection laboratory. Using

Edward Jenner and the Discovery of Vaccines Edward Jenner (1749-1823) trained in London, under John Hunter, and was an army surgeon for a period of time. After that, he spent his whole career as a country doctor in his home county, Gloucestershire (West of England). His research was based on careful case studies and clinical observation more than a hundred years before scientists could explain what viruses and diseases actually were. His innovative new method was successful to such an extent that by 1840 the British government had banned alternative preventive treatments against smallpox. [IMAGE]

The art of medicine and curing diseases was not always approached in a scientific way. In fact, many advances occurred between 1919 to 1939, after technological advances allowed scientists to apply the scientific method to medical research. At this time, the ethics of using patients as test subjects either for new medicines or as samples for further testing were not considered. An extreme example of this was the Nazi’s using concentration camp inmates – including children – to run painful and invasive experiments. More modern examples are not so easy to identify as unethical, however. While amputating a leg to develop methods to deal with fractures and war wounds is obviously unethical, harvesting cells to develop a vaccine is not so clear cut, as the disadvantage to the patient is hard to identify. Coming from the various Nazi testing and especially the Nuremberg testing and trials, another code of ethics was developed, called the Nuremberg Code.