001 - Case of vaccine disease and measles, existing at the same time in the same individual

First, an introduction: there's so much controversy about vaccines, at least in some areas of society (not among scientists, as far as I've seen), so I was inspired to embark on a thorough investigation of the question, so I can promote the truth with more expertise and knowledge. Unfortunately, a Pubmed search for the word "vaccine" turns up more than 220,000 results, and that's just published research; it probably doesn't even cover all the historical, personal, political, and economic questions. But I have to start somewhere, so I'm going to start going through these results.

The first one is the oldest one, from 1823. It is a case report by one S. Gilder, describing his vaccination of a 14-month-old girl.

I wondered what "vaccination" meant in this context, since most of the vaccines we use these days were introduced in the 1950s. But from the context of the article, I figured out that it meant inoculation with cowpox (or in some cases, with smallpox itself) to prevent smallpox. That has been going on for a long time.

So anyway, he inoculated her with cowpox, and then a couple days later she caught measles from her brother. And he observed clear symptoms of measles, at the same time as she was showing clear symptoms of the cowpox inoculation. (Then he applied leeches to treat the measles; this was a while ago.)

The point of the report is to refute an idea present at the time, advocated by one John Hunter, that a person could only suffer from one disease at a time. He derived this theory from several observations of people who, after being vaccinated while ill, seemed to hold off on developing vaccine disease until they got over their illness. But Gilder had just observed two diseases present in the same girl.

It's an interesting piece of medical history, certainly, but I'm not sure it is very helpful for my quest, so I will continue.

Citation: Gilder, S. Case of vaccine disease and measles, existing at the same time in the same individual. Med Chir Trans 12, 186–189 (1823).