Discovery of vaccination that eradicated smallpox

Correct answer: James Phipps

In the late 18^th century, Edward Jenner, a doctor in rural England, observed that milkmaids who contracted cowpox were free from smallpox, a much deadlier infection that had claimed the lives of many children at the time. To test his hypothesis, he took his gardener’s 8-year-old son – James Phipps – and infected him with cowpox by rubbing pus from a cowpox vesicle into a wound on his arm. When Phipps recovered from the mild disease, Jenner then attempted to infect him with smallpox, but found that Phipps was now immune to it. Jenner replicated his findings on a few more children, including his own infant son. The word ‘vaccine’ was subsequently coined by Jenner, taking the Latin word for ‘cow’. ⁽¹⁾    

Figure 1. A cartoon by British artist James Gillray, published in 1802. In this caricature, Edward Jenner was shown administering cowpox vaccine to a young women, while onlookers sprout cow-like features to depict the controversies around vaccination safety at the time of its discovery. (2)

First successful public demonstration of modern general anaesthesia

Correct answer: Edward Gilbert Abbott

In 1845, Horace Wells, a dentist, conducted a public demonstration at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston to prove the efficacy of nitrous oxide gas as an anaesthetic agent. However, his demonstration failed when his patient, an anonymous Harvard medical student, yelped in pain after his tooth was extracted under the influence of the anaesthetic gas, allegedly due to the gas being removed too soon. Wells retreated in shame as the crowd taunted: “Humbug!” ⁽³⁾ Wells’ dental apprentice, William T.G. Morton, was among the audience. Morton went home to perform further experiments using another agent, ether. Convinced by its effects, Morton then called for another public demonstration in MGH where renowned surgeon John Collins Warren was tasked to remove a vascular neck lump from a painter – Edward Gilbert Abbott. Morton administered ether gas to Abbott who remained calmly asleep throughout the procedure. When Abbott awoke at the end of the procedure and reported no pain, Warren turned to address the audience with the famous quote: ‘Gentlemen, this is no humbug.’ ^(4,5)

Figure 2. Scene of the first successful public demonstration of general anaesthesia, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 16 October 1846.The amphitheatre where this demonstration took place is now known as the ‘Ether Dome’. (6)

Discovery of the physical effects of radioactivity

Correct answer: Pierre Curie

In the late 19^th/early 20^th century, Marie Curie and Pierre Curie, both physicists at Sorbornne University in Paris, were the first to isolate the radioactive element radium while researching on the radioactivity of uranium ores under Professor Henri Becquerel. During their work, the Curies suffered from frequent poor health and raw, inflamed hands. ⁽⁷⁾ They gave little attention to the physical effects of handling radium until Becquerel himself sustained a serious skin burn from a piece of radium that he had left inside his waistcoat pocket. Intrigued by this, Pierre applied radium on his own arm for 10 hours to observe the local burn that it produced. This led Pierre to suggest the potential use of radium-induced deep skin burns in the treatment of cancer. Further research by others led to the use of radium in radiotherapy before it was slowly replaced by the creation of artificial radiation sources. ^(8,9)

Figure 3. Marie and Pierre Curie. The couple shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Henri Becquerel in 1903, in recognition of their pioneering work on radioactivity. (10)