1811 Smallpox Inoculations in Berlin, Prussia.

[elverno]

1811 Smallpox Inoculations in Berlin, Prussia.

25.5mm

 

Please oh please I need translations folks.

 

Obverse: EDUARD JENNER'S WOHLTHÆTIGE ENTDEGRUNG (?)

Exergue: VOM 14 MAI 1796

 

Reverse: ZUM ANDENKEN AN ERHALTENEN UND MITGETHEILTEN SCHUTZ

Below a line: GEREICHT VOM DOCTOR BREMER IN BERLIN 1811

Exergue: 8 . L . 6 . GR .

 

I'm pretty sure this has to do with the introduction of smallpox inoculations in Berlin in 1811.

[Art]

Nice medal. Looking forward to some translation info.

[Arminius]

Hi, introduction of smallpox inoculations is correct. Some medic called "Dr. Bremer" handed this out in Berlin 1811. Maybe

 

i´ll try my very best on the translation:

 

Obverse: EDUARD JENNER'S WOHLTHÆTIGE ENTDECKUNG - Edward Jenner´s beneficial discovery

Exergue: VOM 14 MAI 1796 - on May 14, 1796

 

Reverse: ZUM ANDENKEN AN ERHALTENEN UND MITGETHEILTEN SCHUTZ - to commemorate the achieved and transfered protection

Below a line: GEREICHT VOM DOCTOR BREMER IN BERLIN 1811 - applicated/done by doctor Bremer in Berlin 1811

Exergue: 8 . L . 6 . GR . - 8 Lot and 6 Grän ( 0.523 fineness according my humble calculations, fineness relation, Prussian weight units for the relative fineness (silver content): 1 Prussian Lot = 16 Grän, so 134 Grän in total of 256 maximum possible Grän)

 

A Lot (h) described in metallurgy and there especially in the Minting to the 19th Century to an old one measure of the relative fineness to the total weight. One lot was thus a relative dimension of a noble metal content in a coin.

For example, when silver was the desired total weight divided by 1857 at about 16 (ratio) lot, according to a "zwölflötige" silver alloy ¾ = 12/16 or 75% of the weight of silver and 25% other metal (usually copper) contained. Relative dimension of the German Reich in the solder was then replaced permanently by the French relative dimension per mille (per thousand).

 

From http://www.whale.to/vaccines/white_b.html :

 

Dr. Bremer alone at the Royal Institute in Berlin inoculated 14,605.

 

 

regards

 

[constanius]

Historic medal, very nice

 

Was Jenner the first?

 

Edward Jenner is known as the "father of smallpox vaccination", and he dedicated his life, money and reputation to spreading the use of the cowpox vaccine. But in 1774, two decades before Jenner’s experiment on James Phipps, a farmer called Benjamin Jesty vaccinated his wife and children at Yetminster in Dorset.

 

Jesty was aware of the age-old tradition that people who had earlier caught cowpox were thereafter immune from smallpox; his two dairymaids, Ann Notley and Mary Reade – both of whom had had cowpox – nursed smallpox victims without any ill effects. So when cattle on a nearby farm contracted cowpox, Jesty took his wife and children to the farm and carried out a vaccination procedure with a darning needle.

 

Jesty hoped to keep the procedure secret, to avoid the scorn of his neighbours, but his wife became feverish and a doctor had to be called. She survived, and went on to live a long and healthy life. But the story spread and Jesty was subject to local derision. Contemporary accounts describe how he was "hooted at, reviled and pelted whenever he attended markets in the neighbourhood”.The family moved to the Isle of Purbeck where a gravestone records the story.

 

Clearly, Jenner didn’t invent vaccination. But he was the first to conduct the experiment openly, in the name of medical science. And it was his championing of the vaccine that led to its adoption across the world. It is to Jenner – rightly or wrongly – that the credit is given for a vital breakthrough in the battle against disease.

Vaccination vs ‘Variolation

Inoculation against smallpox (‘variolation’) was a common procedure in Britain for almost a century before Jenner carried out the first vaccination. Both vaccination and variolation work by boosting the body’s immune system, stimulating the natural production of anti-bodies that combat disease. But whereas vaccination involves the use of a cowpox vaccine, variolation involves inoculation with live smallpox matter. The problem was that with variolation that weak but live smallpox was used, and the patient then had to be quaratined for 2 weeks as it was possible to pass on the diesease, hence the need for immune carers during that time, also 2% of patients could develope full blown smallpox & die. Mind with out variolation roughly 1 in 6 died.

 

In 1722, 15 inoculators in England had variolated 182 people, mainly children, and only 2 had died odds of 1 in 91 as opposed to 1 in 6.

 

George Pearson, founder of the Original Vaccine Pock Institution, had brought evidence before the House of Commons of Jesty's work in 1774, work which pre-dated Jenner's by 22 years. Unfortunately, Jesty's well-documented case was weakened by his failure to petition in person, and Pearson's inclusion of other claimants whose evidence could not be validated, so no reward was forthcoming.

Unaware of George Pearson’s previous petitions to the Pitt Government about the Dorset farmer, the Reverend Dr. Andrew Bell, rector of Swanage near where Jesty later resided, prepared a paper dated 1 August 1803, proposing Jesty as the first vaccinator, and sent copies to the Original Vaccine Pock Institute and the member of parliament, George Rose.[8] Bell wrote to the Institution again in 1804, having learned of Pearson's involvement.

In 1805, at Pearson's instigation and the institution's invitation, Jesty gave his evidence before 12 medical officers of the institution at its base on the corner of Broadwick Street and Poland Street in Soho. Robert, Jesty's oldest son (by then 28 years old) also made the trip to London and agreed to be inoculated with smallpox again to prove that he still had immunity. After Jesty had been cross-examined, he was presented with a long testimonial and pair of gold mounted lancets. The verbal evidence of their examination was published in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal.