Tag: public health

From Variolation to Cowpox Vaccination: The First Steps Towards Eradicating Smallpox

May 2, 2014

*The following blog post was written by Samantha Sandassie, Queen’s University PH.D candidate/teaching fellow Edward Jenner looms large in the history of vaccination.  Known today as the “father of immunology,” Jenner is most famous for developing a vaccine against smallpox in the 1790s.  The vaccine brilliantly made use of common knowledge.  Milkmaids were known for … More From Variolation to Cowpox Vaccination: The First Steps Towards Eradicating Smallpox

A Fighting Chance: Disease, Public Health, and the Military, Part 3

October 8, 2013

*the following blog post was written by 2013 Margaret Angus Research Fellow Robert Engen As we saw in the last blog post, from a medical point of view the two military campaigns to capture the Dutch island of Walcheren – the first in 1809, the second in 1944 – could not have been more different. … More A Fighting Chance: Disease, Public Health, and the Military, Part 3

A Fighting Chance: Disease, Public Health, and the Military, Part 2

September 30, 2013

*the following blog post was written by 2013 Margaret Angus Research Fellow Robert Engen     Two of the most remarkable stories in military medical history happened in the exact same place: Walcheren, a strip of land that sits like a cork in the mouth of the Scheldt River running through the Netherlands and Belgium. … More A Fighting Chance: Disease, Public Health, and the Military, Part 2

Raising Awareness about Tuberculosis – World TB Day, 24 March 2012 Pt. 1

March 23, 2012

What is TB? Tuberculosis is caused by an infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, rod-shaped bacteria that are spread mostly through air-born droplets or dust micro-particles of dried sputum.  Once inhaled, the body’s immune system typically reacts by engulfing the bacteria, forming a tubercle that contains the bacteria to help keep it from spreading.  In most cases, … More Raising Awareness about Tuberculosis – World TB Day, 24 March 2012 Pt. 1