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0:00
Hello, my name is Anthony Rees.
I'm a chemist turned biochemist.
I was a university lecturer
in molecular biophysics
at the University of Oxford
and later professor and
head of biochemistry
at the University of Bath.
My field of interest
is immunology
with a special interest
in antibodies.
Since 2012, I've been
writing about the
history of antibodies
and more recently vaccines.
The lectures in this
three-part series
relate to the
history of vaccines.
In January of 2022 last year,
my book on the
history of vaccines
was published.
It's from this book
that I've selected
a few examples
with pathogens that
have afflicted
the human population
over thousands of years.
We'll look at some of
the early curative
and often crude measures used
before the advent of modern
medical technologies.
In particular, the seismic
effect of vaccines
on preventing human disease
and reducing mortality.
1:01
On this slide, the
details of each
of the three lectures
are outlined for you
with the relevant chapters
from the book highlighted
for those wishing
to see more detail
of the topics covered.
You can see in lecture one,
this lecture will be covering
infectious diseases,
smallpox and yellow fever.
1:21
In his book,
"Guns, Germs and Steel.
A Short History of Everybody for
the Last 13,000 Years in Britain",
Jared Diamond explores the
origins of human disease
with a stunning conclusion
that the movement
of infectious agents from
domestic animals to humans,
what we call zoonosis,
was facilitated and maintained
by the effective and profitable
business of farming.
Different families with
small farms would gather
together in co-operative
farming activities,
generating small communities
that brought significant
numbers of people
into contact with animals
and with each other.
In a five stage rite of passage,
which you can see on the slide,
Diamond and his
colleagues postulated
that certain infectious agents
present in animal species
do not pass all the hurdles
to become established
as human-specific infections.
For example rabies,
which used to be a stage 1,
is caused by a neurotropic
virus present in dogs,
bats, and less
frequently other animals
and that hasn't
evolved to move beyond
the primary infection
stage, stage 1.
HIV on the other hand,
has passed all five stages.
We could also add
influenza to that.
