The Vaccine

!
A horse drawn carriage trundled over an unpaved road littered with
carcasses. Carcasses of unfortunate people that were unable to pay the fees
of burial that had risen so steeply since the start of the smallpox outbreak.
! The carriage progressed along the slope of the hill and vanished
from sight as it advanced over the edge of the hill. Within the carriage sat
Edward Jenner, lovingly cradling his sick daughter’s head on his lap.
Jane’s gentle eyes were closed and her shaky breath just managed to
escape from her trembling lips. He was taking her to a hospital, the best
hospital he could find.
! If you followed the little unpaved road back past rotting bodies you
would arrive in a small town. You would behold a scene of chaos, dead
bodies crowding the streets, mothers holding dead babies in unbelieving
arms, husbands searching through piles of rotting bodies, a disastrous
smallpox outbreak was raging through the town. It had ended the life of
many people, destroyed the potential of countless children and brought
inexplicable grief to numerous husbands, wives and children.
! Recollections of his jubilant life that the smallpox outbreak had so
cruelly ended constantly haunted his mind. The first first time baby John
had opened his little green eyes, the time Jane discovered chocolate, the
time when Meredith had nearly drowned but just in time, Edward had
rescued her from the breakers threatening doom. Then he remembered the
time when he had found her lying on the bed, trembling and wheezing her
face puckered with scars. He had immediately escorted her to the doctor’s
where they established that she was sick with smallpox. That was the night
when her leg was amputated, when her sporting life ended. It happened
something like this...
! “ Sit down on the chair please ma’am and I’ll be with you in a tick,”
instructed the doctor. Meredith lowered herself onto the chair, her weak,
smallpox dotted frame was trembling violently. In her hand she grasped an
alcohol sodden strip of leather that she would clench between her teeth
when her leg was being amputated. Meredith sat there, shivering
involuntarily. She saw the doctor advance on her holding a shining blade
in his right hand. Instinctively she bit on her strip of leather and shut her
eyes. A blood curdling scream pierced Jenner’s ears, he pressed his head
back on the chair and bit his lower lip so hard that he could taste his salty
blood. There was a pause during which he heard his wife’s heavy
breathing, he struggled to resist the urge to leap up, grab her and take her
back home. Then another scream penetrated the door and resounded in his
ear drums. Jenner could almost feel his wife’s pain as strongly as she
herself could feel it. The door creaked open and his wife appeared, out
cold on a wheel chair, crippled for life. Little did they know that she was
only temporarily free from the fatal disease.
!
.....

“Excuse me sir, we’re here, hello, we’re at the best hospital I could find, sir,
we’re here,” the cab driver’s timid speech roused Edward from his
reminiscence.
! “Ah, thank you,” Edward replied drowsily. “Um, could you help me
escort my daughter to the hospital please.”
! Edward dismounted and with the cab driver’s help escorted Jane to
her hospital bed. As he saw her frail he felt water well in his eyes. Slowly
they tumbled out and dripped slowly down his pale cheeks and onto the
mattress that embraced his daughter’s feeble frame.
! “If you will please leave us to deal with your daughter, it may enable
the doctors to work better, thank you,” instructed the doctor. Without
waiting for Edward’s response, she shut the door on Edward’s
face.Edward roused himself and dragged his feet along the rutted path
that would lead him back home, to his crippled wife and chaotic home.
! The sun was setting when he finally reached his house. The rain had
just begun to leak from the sky as tears leaked from Edward’s face, when
he saw his wife sitting in her wheel chair holding their newborn son, John.
! “Come in, come in quickly out of that rain or you’ll catch your
death,” Meredith ushered him in and brewed him a soothing cup of mint
tea.
! “Did the doctors seem friendly enough darling?”
! “mmm,” replied Edward through a gulp of tea.
! “Good.” Meredith let loose a sigh as she cast another longing glance
at the leg that wasn’t there then another as John began to moan and groan.
! Edward heaved himself out of his chair and slammed the study door
behind him, leaving Meredith staring after the man that had changed so
much, the new husband in the same skin as the old one. It was amazing
how much change one little virus could cause, amazing how fantastic a
difference a virus could make in a man. As if John could read her thoughts
he gurgled, sighed and closed his little eyes.
! In the privacy of his own little study, Edward leant over his papers.
Eagerly scrutinizing the small print as if willing the answers to come out
as he had done so often since Jane had fallen sick. He was determined to
find a way to save his daughter from having a limb brutally cut off and a
way to make sure John would never catch the fatal disease.
! Bed covers rustled as Edward heaved himself out of bed, glumly he
rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and plodded down the stairs. He crept
through the door and out into the early morning in the belief that some
fresh air may do him some good. Not that the air was fresh, even Edward
was aware that the air was probably contaminated with bacterium. He
dragged his feet past a stall with bowls of leeches. He stopped by the stall,
just to see what they were for.
! He saw a man enter the booth to attend to a young man dotted with
the scars of smallpox. THe man picked up a frighteningly fat leech and
placed it on the patients body. The slimy creature stuck there and feasted
on the patient’s blood. It sucked out drop after drop. It was soon joined by
more of it’s kind. Edward shook his head sadly and walked on. Leeches
never, ever worked. Sometimes the virus wasn’t in the blood, and if it was
it was hard to find and the leeches would have to suck up a lethal amount
of blood to find it. Disheartened Edward walked to his hospital to begin
his day’s work.
! Edward slipped off his rubber gloves and scanned the waiting room,
a room filled with people dotted with the distinctive marks of smallpox.
“How wonderful it would be to rid the world of this disease,” he thought.
“What a miracle it would be.”
! That night Edward walked quietly home past the leeches stall. How
he hated the idea of having creatures suck out your blood, how he hated
the idea of having limbs cut off. If only he could think of something less
brutal and more humane. To be sure, everyone knew that leeches didn’t
work, the creatures were not always even in the blood, and if they were,
they were hard to find.
! He sulked onward to work. When he arrived he sat down at his
office. He had a funny feeling that something big was about to happen. He
looked down at his papers with sighing eyes. He was onto something, yes,
no, no, it couldn’t be... but it was! His blood pounded through his veins as
he rushed back to the accountant's room where he ransacked the drawers.
At last he found it, the records. He eagerly flipped through them. His grey
eyes again scrutinizing the papers his brow furrowed as he almost willed
the answer out. Yes, yes! It was true, ah, how fantastic science was! It
seemed to Jenner that none of the patients that had before been infected
with cowpox were ever infected with smallpox!
! He tumbled into the waiting room and scanned the sea of bodies
dotted with smallpox. He again saw patient after patient dotted with
smallpox file into the waiting room.
! “Excuse me,” Edward said and saw a dozen faces turn towards him,
“but, do you have any family members that have ever been infected with
cowpox?” He waited for a response, a few people nodded, others merely
stared ahead.
! “Umm,” Edward continued, “have they ever been infected with
smallpox?” He watched expectantly. They all shook their heads, but didn’t
seem very interested. Edward suppressed his excitement and almost
skipped back to his office. As the secretaries entered and recorded notes,
Edward watched intently. At the end of the day, his theory was confirmed.
! When he got home, he sat at the tea table with his wife.
! “Meredith, if something happened to me, would you promise to look
after Jane for me?”
! “Well, yes, of course, but why Edward? Don’t do anything too
rushed please, be careful.”
! “Don’t worry, I’ll think before I act.”
Instead of rushing away back to his study, for once Edward stayed and
talked with his wife. They talked about everything and anything. “Nice
weather today isn’t it,” observed Edward.
! “Yes, indeed it is. Hasn’t been like this for a long time.”
! For once, Edwards spirits were at ease, for once, the plague of
worries that had dominated his mind left him and let a smile spread across
his face. They talked about the weather, books, artists, music, animals,
wine and food. Until late that night, Edward and his wife’s mouths were
blabbing about useless things, but it made them feel good.
! When Edward finally decided that it was time to do something other
than talk, his wife was preparing herself for bed. Edward removed himself
from the tea table and sat down on his chair in his study. The candle light
cast a sinister look over the room and his outlined silhouette looked to all
passers by like a ghost.
! Edward’s hand snaked it’s way to his pocket from which he
withdrew a small pouch. A pouch that may be the resolution to the squalid
conditions of his home. Inside the pouch was a gooey liquid, only Edward
was aware that this liquid, the extracted cowpox virus, may be the savior
of many a life to come. Again his pale hand snaked it’s way to his pocket,
this time withdrawing a syringe. He lay the syringe down on the table and
heaved a sigh. A sigh filled with the memories of a life that he may be
leaving with the start of this process.
! He shook his head as if to shake the thoughts out. Edward carefully
squeezed the contents of the package out. It fell ungracefully and flopped
into the syringe. The virus was a gruesome sight to behold, he was about
to inject that repulsive liquid into his body, about to MAKE himself sick.
! “Argh, no more hesitation,” Edward commanded himself. “Get this
over and done with,” the almost frozen tip of the syringe sent a cold tingle
through his body as it pierced his skin. He had just injected himself with
the first vaccine ever invented, ever imagined throughout the history of
mankind.
! Edward awoke. He cast his eyes down to his arm that was resting on
a the armrest of his chair. He saw the red, raw cowpox blisters dotted over
his arm, he looked at his leg, more blisters, at his hand, more blisters. The
virus had done it’s work.
! If Edward’s theory was correct, he should now be immune to
smallpox, if his theory was incorrect, he would probably die when he
injected himself. “But then again,” Edward thought, “why are we afraid of
death? Perhaps a better life awaits after death. I suppose humans are
afraid of death because it is unknown, perhaps we are afraid of the
unknown.”
! With this assurance Edward drifted back to sleep.
! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! THE NEXT MORNING

! Edward awoke. He cast his eyes down to his arm that was resting on
the armrest of his chair. He saw the red, raw cowpox blisters dotted over
his arm, he looked at his leg, more blisters, at his hand, more blisters. The
virus had done it’s work.
! “Edward, Edward where are you? Edward!” She exclaimed. In a split
second she was standing with her back to him wringing out a soaked
towel.
! “Meredith, good morning. Oh, oh don’t. Don’t touch me please. It’s
cowpox, it’ll go away. If you touch it you’ll be infected too.”
! “Edward, what did you do to yourself!?”
! “I’m calling it vaccinating. When you inject yourself with a virus to
protect yourself from a more harmful virus.”
! “Why? Why on yourself?”
! “I’m testing it to see if it actually works.”
! “What??? What if something happens to you? Are you going to leave
me all by myself? Why don’t you do it on somebody else?”
! “How am I going to convince someone to have something that could
kill them tested on them? What am I going to say to them: “If you take
this, you could have proven my theory, but you could also die and then
not prove my theory”? Meredith, I believe in this.”
! That did the trick. Meredith left the damp towel on the table and left
the room, her face buried in her hands.
! “When I find the cure for smallpox, the cure for Jane, she’ll get over
it,” thought Edward and resumed his work.

! It was three days after the first vaccination ever that the red blisters
that dotted Edward’s body ceased to bother him and departed to irritate
some other person. “This is the day,” thought Edward, “Today is the day
that I will or will not discover the cure for this outrageous disease.”
! He was already in possession of the smallpox virus. He had
extracted it from one of his patients. It was even more gruesome than the
last one. The thought that that was what he was about to inject into his
body made him shudder. He shut the study door and squeezed the goo
into the syringe. If he turned back now he would have to live a life
knowing that he had preferred to let millions of people die in order to save
his own life. The palm of the hand that held the syringe was beaded with
balls of sweat. He stabbed the needle into his skin and pressed out the goo.
The metal needle was buried in his skin, he could almost feel the virus
mingling with his blood. He heaved out the syringe and left it on the table.
! When he woke up the next day, his head was sunk down into his
pillow, and he couldn’t lift it up. He tried in vain to raise it so that he could
look at his watch, but it was just too heavy. “Meredith,” he tried to call out,
but all he could get out was a hoarse “crooooaaaak.”
! The croak was enough for Meredith, she heard it and came rushing
down to him.
! “Edward....Edward, Edward, Edward! What have you done???”
! “Meredith, I, well I think perhaps I have just committed suicide.”
! “You WHAT?”
! “I was testing my theory.”
! “What theory?”
! “I thought that if I had injected myself with the cowpox virus, I
would be immune to the smallpox virus, but as you can see, it may not
have worked.”
! “What on earth got into your head! Oh Edward,” Meredith buried her
face in her hands and collapsed into a puddle of tears.
! “No, Meredith. Don’t be like that. You never look at the bright side! At
least nobody else will make the same mistake as me. Calm down. I may even
stay alive! Who knows?”
! “Edward,” Meredith managed to choke out, “name one person that has
survived smallpox.”
! “Well, perhaps I may,” croaked out Edward. Meredith sniffed, heard
little John crying and stumbled out of the study.
! “Perhaps it’s just a side effect,” Edward thought to himself, more for
comfort than reason.

AS IT TURNED OUT...IT WAS!

! Edward Jenner recovered, and soon was as well as ever. Jane also
recovered and John was vaccinated. The vaccine was soon very popular
and within the next week, all of Berkeley was using it. Within the next year
the whole of America was using it and the rest of the world soon followed
America’s example.
! A while later the World Health Organization COMPLETELY
eliminated the smallpox virus from the face of the earth using Jenner’s
invention.
!
!
! Helena