Saw an excellent cartoon about this. A kid asks his mother what the scar on her arm was "It's a scar from the smallpox vaccine." The kid asks why he doesn't have one and the mother replied "Because it worked."
Before my first deployment I received a small-pox vaccine. The medic used a small forked needle dipped in the vaccine to puncture the skin of my shoulder and wiggle it around a bit. The result was a necrotic lesion about the size of a half-dollar coin, a fever, and two or three days of body aches. I still have a scar on my shoulder from the inoculation site. I had ONE lesion and was in bed for 3 days feeling rough while my body fought a version of the disease that wasn't even effective against my species. I cannot IMAGINE the suffering that someone with an actual case of small pox must have endured. By the end, death must've been a sweet release. It's frightening to see the caliber of threat required to get humanity to work together.
Reading about the ways that some people died from smallpox is nightmare material. Some of the most severe cases would result in people having their skin sloughing off. Photos are also terrifying. I just wish I could personally thank all the people involved in making sure that I never, ever had to worry about catching this horrible disease.
It is worth noting that Smallpox was the *ideal* virus to eradicate. Its particular traits made it extremely deadly but also extremely easy to target by coordinated vaccination efforts. Most other viruses are nowhere near so considerate.
@@foolishball9155 It's a bit of a double edge sword; yes, lot of viruses are host specific and therefore are easily detectable. However, viruses also rapidly evolve thanks to how easy it is for mRNA (the chemical method by which a virus hijacks it's host) to mutate due to the lack of proofreading proteins. These mutations could very easily give viral offspring immunities that it's parents never had the luxury of having. That and while we have one or two kids that take 18 years to mature, viruses have multiple hundreds of progeny that mature seconds after they're born; they just evolve way faster than we do out of sheer numbers
@@foolishball9155 Most of the viruses that you commonly get (cold flu and our newest friend the coronavirus) are able to infect a large portion of at least the mammals(ebola and some other nasty stuff would fall into this too, even things that aren't viruses like anthrax, malaria, and the plague). As an additional problem many viruses effectively prevent the immune system from detecting them or normally functioning (HIV, Hepatitis C) which further complicates the issue. Viruses that we could reasonably have a chance at eradicating would be polio... maybe the viral Hepatitis depending on how much we reduce the price of the magic pill? Without further technical advancement in either genetic modification, or medical technology (wide band virophages or something) most RNA viruses will be uncontrolled (due to their modification speed) along with those that have a wide spectrum of hosts.
@@RipRLeeErmey yeah it is true that RNA viruses evolve way faster than DNA viruses. There are more DNA viruses but most of them are not deadly disease except the ones that cause cancer like HPV. My point does not hold much water in case of highly mutatable viruses.
My fathers grandmother survived this virus on her own. More than half the village died as she remembers it. Her mother, father and 8 other siblings died from it, she was the only one to survive. Fun fact, she never got sick of anything after this in her life and lived over 90 years.
She was the only survivor of 9? My dads little brother is too the only raven haired of the 9 siblings. Everyone knows he is illegitimate. So... I think she owes her life to the resistance genes of her biologic father.
it's really so frustrating to see people in developed nations protesting vaccines. as someone in a developing nation, where people would do anything for access to such healthcare, it feels like we've truly learnt nothing from our history.
The problem was it became politicized, information became readily available, and knowledge became more widespread. The covid-19 vaccine was protested against because people were aware. They saw the Vaccine didn't really help anybody, caused more side effects than help, and really only became a tool for politicized control rather than an actual cure. The covid vaccine did not help anybody as people were still contracting the virus, and even showed worse side effects than those who didn't get it. Side effects like heart problems became apparent very quickly, but despite all these occurances, governments still restricted freedoms, stifled conflicting views, and profited themselves off the chaos instead of being a force for good.
If you didn't knew , the last person to die from small pox was Janet Parker. In 1978, Parker was a medical photographer at England's Birmingham University Medical School. She worked one floor above the Medical Microbiology Department where staff and students conducted smallpox research.
Smallpox is often the reason why people used to have 10 babies, with the expectation that a few will make it to adulthood. People asked how did ancient people live without vaccines, the answer was, they didn't. They just had more babies so more could die without wiping out humanity. Look at cemeteries from the 1800s and you will see a lot of children's graves.
@@ListenimtooshyalrightI saw an extremely similar interaction to this on an unrelated video, I think these two users might be bots? Or at least one person
The successful international effort during the 1960s to eradicate smallpox was headed by Czech physician and epidemiologist Karel Raška. His new concept of eliminating the disease was adopted by the WHO in 1967 and eventually led to the eradication of smallpox in 1977. Raška was also a strong promoter of the concept of disease surveillance, which was adopted in 1968 and has since become a standard practice in epidemiology.
@@frozenfeet4534 I'm not sure what you mean by reactionary. I'm a simple italian that finds the american worship of blacks and women not only distasteful, but annoying. Yes, kurtzgesagt is german but look at the sponsor of this video.
My great grandfather and grandmother ALWAYS talked about diseases back when they were young. Mostly comparing it to how well he have it now. Some of the stories from my grandfather include the smallpox hysteria, how his father somehow got it while out of the country, and died before even making it home to the US. When they had a vaccine for it, he talked about how he actually got choked up so that nobody would have to suffer that fate anymore. I've seen the wounds smallpox leaves, I couldn't imagine having to live with them.
What a timely video to pop up on my feed today. I just took my 1-year old for her 12 month vaccines this morning (mumps, measles, rubella) and my heart broke hearing her cry from the shots. But I know that it’s necessary for her protection and I’m so grateful we can protect our children!
Ehhhheh.. Do you have FACTS that show the efficacy and safety of that MMR vaccine? Factual, unbiased facts I mean. : ) Do you know about the kids who died due to effects of MMR vaccines, or suffered severe consequences, permanent damage to their health? O_o Why would MMR vaccination necessary for her protection? How can you "protect" your children? From what? How does that "mytical" protection work? What are the efficacy and safety levels of that protection? o__O
@@Steel9k 1. First link in the description. 2. Far far, far fewer, both in raw numbers and rate-adjusted percentages, than the kids who died or got permanent health issues of measles, mumps, and/or rubella. 3. Kurzgesagt has a video on how vaccines work. 4. Better than 80%, and even that may be lowballing it.
@@The_Epicness9000 ". First link in the description." No, no real evidence that would be adequate in the description. Its the same old provax propaganda and lies. "2. Far far, far fewer, both in raw numbers and rate-adjusted percentages, than the kids who died or got permanent health issues of measles, mumps, and/or rubella." Yeah, because of manipulation of statistics and due to better living conditions, better nutrition, fresh water etc. Not due to vaccinations. "3. Kurzgesagt has a video on how vaccines work." A propaganda video, containing lies and not talking about the severe side effects vaccines cause. "4. Better than 80%, and even that may be lowballing it." You could just say ~ 4000 % If you lie, do it proudly :D
I had a friend at school in the 70s who had suffered smallpox as a baby. She was one of the final few people in our country to have it. Fortunately, her face, hands and neck only had a few mild scars. The scarring on her arms was shocking. I never saw the rest of her body.
The revelation came when doctors noticed milk maids didnt get small pox and most farmers showed immunity as well. So when they looked at cowpox, they realized small pox had the same markers, so immunity to one meant immunity to the other.
@@rehanhossainalim6038pretty sure by markers he means symptoms. Around that time they wouldn’t have been able to see exactly how viruses ticked and so symptoms would be the way they could tell the difference.
@@Bobbhgf yup he was variolated , one of his teachers (?) was also a milkmaid and said "that's ok, but i had cow pox so I can't get small pox" and that sentence basically set up his life's dedication to the disease
The cowpox virus was also known as "vaccinia" from the Latin "vacca" for cow. Since actual cowpox was used to "vaccinate", it's where the word vaccine comes from in the first place!
the erradication of smallpox is a prime example of just what humans are capable of, and that we are capable of working together. You can be pessimistic, but i think humans are still capable of massive species wide feats like this.
Smallpox being eradicated is probably one of the largest achievements humanity has ever done, at least in my opinion. It gives me so much pride in humanity to know that we have eradicated it.
@@AverageWagie2024Really wish it'd get banned, not only is it disruptive it's also making the next generation's attention span go at an all-time low. 😔
Big fan of you guys! You all played a role in me deciding to become a biochemistry major and later go into medicine to be a doctor! Just graduated from med school, in my medicine residency, and I still love watching the videos you make! Keep up the good work! (And of course your soundtrack music on Spotify has been a large part of my study background music this entire time!) Excellent work!
When I was growing up, my family had a World Book encyclopedia from 1974, and later got ahold of one from 1982. As some of us do, I went through that weird phase where you get fascinated by diseases, and I was fixated on Smallpox. It just so happened that this coincided with us getting the newer version of the set. At the time, I just thought it was funny that the older one was "wrong" since smallpox had been eradicated and it was out of date. But one of the things I noticed at the time, which is truly striking today, is that the first sentence in the different editions were nearly identical, except that the second had one miniscule difference. It had a most terrible word replaced with a most lovely one. "is" had become "was"
It’s truly amazing when such a terrible disease that *was* the scourge of humanity for countless millennia becomes a was. But it’s also terrifying that to an extent it still exists. Not just in token laboratories, but frozen in Siberian permafrost, waiting to melt and unleash it’s horror on the world again.
Yeah the immune system arms race is absolutely nuts. Basically, viruses (and to some extent bacteria) evolve so much faster than us that our immune system gave up and said "ok but whatever doesn't kill us will never be able to hurt us again" and rolled 30 thousand dice. with the obvious shortcoming that all a pathogen needs to do is kill us the first time.
@@iluvpandas2755 It does and doesn't. The adaptive immune system has the capacity for somatic hypermutation. Regions of your DNA that purposefully rip themselves apart and recombine to form new antibodies and the space of possible variant targets is extremely large. It's a programmed process but it allows the immune system to target things it isn't programmed for.
Thank you Edward Jenner!!! For noticing the Cow pox and the cow maids who never got small pox. He had a scientific hypothesis and was able to replicate it and gave us one of the greatest discoveries in human history! My parents have their smallpox vaccination scar. And I remember as a kid asking what it was, because I didn’t have one…and why I didn’t need one.
Edward Jenner was a menace, he infected his son with cow pox, and to prove his hypothesis then proceeded to infect his son with the real virus. Luckily, his hypothesis was true
"We are still protected by the light, but it is cooling each and every day, and we it to those who will come after us to make sure it doesn't go out. We killed one monster. We can do it again." Wow, that was inspirational
In 1972, Yugoslavia had an outbreak of smallpox, it was the largest outbreak in Europe after the Second World War. I recently read about it, very fascinating! They vaccinated eighteen (18) million citizens in about one month.
@@4ktaYup. There are two places where the virus is still contained as the video said. The one one in Siberia, and the one in the USA. Edit: Siberia, not Serbia… lol
@@miji6267 just report the comment, its a generic spam account. (Ive seen this same comment with the name altered spammed on like 10 different channels)
Virologist postdoc here! Just wanna thank you on your excellent video on smallpox and Edward Jenner! Know that your video is used to educate future immunology undergrads. Can I suggest Poliovirus next? It's just a really interesting disease/virus with real life visual social impacts like iron lungs and kids in crutches.
I love how these cells are refered to as civilian cells, immune cells (military cells) and heavy weapon cells. It really does bring home the fact that the whole body is a whole community working side by side to ensure the continuation of the whole. The only reason why the body would kill cells in itself would be if the cells did harm to the overall system and there was no better way to deal with the matter.
The cells in our bodies evolved before joing together for survival purposes (multi-celled organism as opposed to single-cell). Through cooperation, despite their differences, they feed and defend eachother. Ironic that humans as a species often discriminate against anyone not belonging to their "tribe" when this mass diversity of cells is what holds all of us together. Poetically though, you could argue that multiculturalism and tolerance resides in all of us as we are literally made of these qualities.
@@trololkhil9868 when I studied It in Biology I was in awe at the level of organization the inmune system has with the body. It makes me wonder if how we organized our society where people specialize in a task, is evolutionary emergent from the same system that makes our bodies work like this
Amazing how from such humble beginnings and human cooperation, we were able to eradicate an entire disease. It’s inspiring, hope we can unite like that more in the future
Wish we did that from the period of late 2019-2021 when we had the chance to instead of have leaders try and hope for it to go away on its own before turning that shit into a political issue when it was always going to be a human issue...
It’s due to desperation that might wipe out all of humanity. They didn’t care until the pandemic knocked on their bubbles and doors 😂 just like covid.. see what happened to ebola… the rest of the world still busy about watching Kardashians 😂
You know, this is proof that when humans come together, we can solve any problem. And with all the problems going around in the world, unity can indeed help save the world..
a major part of the politicians job is to allocate money to the scientists who discover what the best method of fixing an issue is and a major part of the job of industry is to take more money from the politicians to implement what the scientist discovered. the taskforces that ended smallpox or CFC usage didnt come about from everyone staying in their lane. everyone needs to work together and work to their strengths as well.@@content_enjoyer4458
I watched this video then watched the cancer one, and it just makes me think how this disease could’ve just been the “cancer” in the past. And it’s even more unbelievable to think that even cancer could be eliminated in the future! Incredible.
It is far less talked about, but in my opinion, the eradication of smallpox is a human achievement on par with the moon landing or the internet. Arguably beyond them.
None of these clowns on this channel are Drs !! They even admit it !! We’re a team of illustrators, animators, number crunchers and one dog who aim to spark curiosity about science and the world we live in. To us nothing is boring if you tell a good story. Read the # 1 Best selling book VIRUS MANIA- written by a real Dr. !!Thanks
Every time I see a proclamation of a human triumph over a disease, I feel an overwhelming amount of awe and patriotism towards the human race which I'm a part of. It almost brings me to tears every time I see the indomitable will of man brought down like a hammer unto our enemies.
It's too bad that within the same human race, there's anti-vaxers and people against immunity of deadly and threatening viruses, claiming the vaccines have "worse" implications. Some people are such idiots.
Yeah and there are anti-vaxxers. Just imagine, right? A humanity found the way to eliminate the disease, but there are people like "nah it turns me into a cow, I'll better die". And they are still freaking exists.
@@eoffsock Don't forget of provaxers. Those weirdos claim their vaccines work. In the same time they are terrified of unvaccinated peoole, and wage a war against the unvaccinated, against human rights, self determination and against freedom. I guess infectious diseases are not the true enemy, since there are still plenty of infectious disease after so many vaccination programmes. Provaxers must wage their annoying wars. Is it not strange, mate?
Too bad it's not really that simple with total most of other viruses even if 'we' have had such a wish. Even worse is 'we' don't have such a wish and a large part of 'us' is actively fighting this tendency.
@@ShadeAKAhayate When "we" also create scarier monsters to get better at killing them, and the people who create the monsters supposedly find one in the wild that looks like one they would have created, and the media censors, ridicules, or slanders the people who point this out, then yeah, you're going to get people fighting it, even if every part of the process is in the best interest of the people fighting it.
I’m a college student right now taking biology but I don’t know what I want to specialise in, this video honestly inspires me to pursue microbiology and eventually research diseases
yyou should the information is really interesting. may I recommend RoanokeGaming who is a pathophysiologist who breaks down and analyses fictional diseases and sometimes organisms. it's pretty fascinating and i think it can give you a taste of what you'll be learning so you can see if you really want to study it.
yeah, i think you should the topic is really fascinating. May i recommend you check out RoanokeGaming? He's a pathophysiologist (studies disease and how it spreads) to give you a feel of what you'd likely be learning. I find his breakdowns of fictional diseases (zombie, parasites, ect.) to be quite interesting, albeit it's likely simplised so everyone can enjoy it.
I don't know why this made me so emotional especially towards the end. Humanity indeed can do seemingly impossible things together but we are separated by the boundaries we ourselves created. We are our own roadblock.
@@content_enjoyer4458 Care to explain why this view is naive? I think it's merely a fact that humanity could've achieved a lot more if we wouldn't fight ourselves for dubios reasons...
The thing with the cow is that the scientist noticed that milkmaids never got smallpox. Thats when he got the idea of cowpox protecting against smallpox. It takes presence of mind to notice such a thing.
The last outbreak of Variola vera in Europe happened in Yugoslavia in 1972. It was quickly put under control and thousands of people were vaccinated in short time to stop it from spreading.
I lived in the small town of Berkeley, UK for years. It always fascinated me that Edward Jenner (the father of the vaccine and who discovered the link with cowpox) lived in the house opposite. His house is now a museum
My grandma actually was really happy when smallpox was eradicated, as well as when the polio vaccine came out. She got polio as a kid and lost some hearing, so hearing about diseases getting thrown out the metaphorical airplane window makes her happy
It still occasionally blows my mind that we are a collection of an untold number of cells all doing there own thing functioning independently. Like when we get sick theres a whole network of immune cells that respond that we aren't even conscious of. These cells have intelligence's of there own. It almost feels like we're walking talking universes to a multitude of microscopic life forms. Freaky when you think about it.
All thanks to 'emergence' simple things creating something more complex together. From the quarks to the atoms, to molecules to cells, tissues and organs and eventually you. From you to your local environment, from that to societies to a species. Like letters in a word, a sentence in a book. It's cool that these simple things create such complex outcomes!
Folks go on about the perfection of creation. I point out auto immune responses and how our bodies defense's can overwhelm our ability to heal trying to fight disease or even injury. They tell me it's a lie. I have to point to smallpox. It hits us hard, fast, from within our immune system, breaking the chain of natural responses to illness for profit. They claim Smallpox doesn't exist. I point out that was one of Mankinds greatest achievements and we need to do it with Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Whopping Cough and Polio. We would only have to defeat each of them once, and our species would never need to face them again. And either I get strong support to the idea, because they did their research about how nasty these sicknesses are. Enquiries why we haven't cured the Flu, Cancer, HIV or something else so nebulous and complex that herd immunity is a pain to develop. Or folks who claim they never had these things, so why should they get immunised. Which tells me who I shouldn't hang out with if I don't wish for a secondary infection. Every immune cell in our bodies works independently, and complex life has been around so long it developed tools to fight back against disease, heal from it, and continue as it always had. There is a limited number of diseases out there that SPECIFICALLY adapted to our unique methods of defence and existence in the effort of finding a great new place to live. And viruses are uniquely in a position of keeping ahead or the immune response curve or dying out forever. But no one remembers how successful the Cold is at spreading and moving on. While HIV is deadly (eventually) but terrible at spreading. While the real threats to our civilization and species are the stuff that kills you, while spreading like wildfire. Covid-19 had that potential, to overwhelm our health systems, some nations faltered, some nations endured regardless, and yet others cut the curve and suffered very few fatalities, by keeping the case levels low. The variation between global responses, and thus body count internationally, is wildly different not due to climate, but due to how well different strategies to manage these contagious outbreaks worked. Covid-19 continues to exist. And if it mutates into something nasty, we might have to do it all again. But now enough people have had it to protect our species and society, hopefully. So it doesn't become the next smallpox.
I think about this a lot. Or should I say, the trillions of cells that comprise my being think about it a lot. It's just cells thinking about cells, atoms pondering atoms, the universe peering into itself.
If a cell was as big as a human then a human would be as big as 20 Mount Everests. Imagine a blood cell going like Mach 3 speeds just to get from your feet to your head and back!
It's cool how Kurzgesagt is not just a youtube channel, it's a bloody institution. They get grants, just like a uni. Absolutely awesome. Keep up the good work guys.
I am old enough to have gotten vaccinated against Smallpox in school. Also the "sugar" vaccine (against Polio). I found the "scraping" easier pain wise than the Tetanus shots I have received over my life time. I remember having a sore arm for several days and the feeling of "coming down with something" for a short time. To this day I like the two Smallpox vaccine scars on my upper arm. They give me a good, safe feeling.
the vaccine scarring (also BCG's) is probably what traumatizes a lot of kids with vaccines and make them so scared of being vaccinated, because most vaccines actually don't hurt at all.
Unfortunately, the smallpox vaccine only protects you for around 10 years. The last person in Britain to die of smallpox in 1978, the Birmingham medical school lab technician Janet Parker, was actually vaccinated. She died because research was still being carried out on live variola in the lab below her, despite all requests to destroy any samples of the virus worldwide, and the air from that lab vented into hers. Shortly after she died, the head of Birmingham Medical School, Henry Benson, who had authorised the work on the virus, killed himself. My Dad knew him.
The sugar cube sucked! Tasted like shoe polish. I'm also one of the last in my country to have received the smallpox jab; for whatever reason it was given on my thigh (the mark is still there, plain as day). I received a bunch of vax before my 5th birthday, don't remember much about them but I do recall once getting what is called a "kiiltokuva" (lit. "shiny picture"; a type of glossy embossed scrapbook picture) in my language; they were popular at the time and doctors would frequently give those to kids who were afraid of needles. It was an orange kitten playing with a blue ball of yarn. It was one of my most treasured possessions.
As a young child I often wondered why exactly my mum had a pretty noticeable scar on her upper arm and asked her about it. She explained to me, that it was from her vaccine against smallpox, even telling me exactly how different vaccines were when she was a child. That scar is still there, still as noticeable as back then, but now that I learned this a lot more impressive. She was born in 1968
A biography I read of Catherine the Great of Russia was really awesome. She had her people go around town to town, vaccinating people against smallpox (or whatever form they did.... not sure if it was 'inoculating' or something). She had it done to herself in front of her whole court to show it wasn't a big deal. It's amazing how early on they learned this, after seeing that milkmaids didn't tend to get smallpox 'cause they'd already had the milder cowpox.
GOD'S STANDARD FOR HEAVEN IS PERFECTION AND ONLY JESUS (THE SON OF GOD/GOD IN THE FLESH) LIVED THAT PERFECT LIFE! HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE & TOOK THE WRATH OF THE FATHER ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS! GOD IS JUST SO HE MUST PUNISH SIN & HE IS HOLY SO NO SIN CAN ENTER HIS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. IF YOU ARE IN CHRIST ON JUDGEMENT DAY GOD WILL SEE YOU AS HIS PERFECT SON (SINLESS SINCE YOUR SINS ARE COVERED BY JESUS' OFFERING). YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE TO REJECT JESUS' GIFT/SACRIFICE & PAY FOR YOUR OWN SIN WITH DEATH (HELL) BUT THAT SEEMS PRETTY FOOLISH! GOD SEES & HEARS EVERYTHING YOU HAVE SAID & DONE. YOU WONT WIN AN ARGUMENT WITH HIM & YOU CANT DEFEND ANY OF YOUR SINS TO HIM. YOU'RE NOT A GOOD PERSON, I'M NOT A GOOD PERSON... ONLY GOD IS GOOD! WE'RE ALL GUILTY WITHOUT ACCEPTING JESUS' SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS! MUHAMMAD DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, BUDDHA DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, NO PASTOR/NO PRIEST/NO SAINT/NO ANCESTOR DIED FOR YOUR SINS, MARY DIDN'T, THE POPE DIDN'T EITHER, NO IDOLS OR FALSE gods DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO MUSICIAN OR CELEBRITY DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO INFLUENCER OR TH-cam STAR DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO SCIENTIST OR POLITICIAN DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO ATHLETE OR ACTOR DIED FOR YOUR SINS! STOP IDOLIZING & WORSHIPING THESE PEOPLE! JESUS CHRIST ALONE DIED FOR YOUR SINS & WAS RESURRECTED FROM THE GRAVE! HE IS ALIVE & COMING BACK VERY VERY SOON WITH JUDGEMENT (THESE ARE END TIMES)! PREPARE YOURSELVES, TURN FROM SIN & RUN TO JESUS! HE KNOWS YOUR PAIN & TROUBLES, HE WANTS TO HEAL & RESTORE YOU! TALK TO HIM LIKE A BEST FRIEND! ASK HIM TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO YOU & HELP YOU TO BELIEVE IF YOU DOUBT! DON'T WAIT TO CRY OUT! NO ONE IS PROMISED TOMORROW! HE LONGS FOR YOU TO INVITE HIM IN, HE LOVES YOU MORE THAN ANY PERSON EVER COULD, HE CREATED YOU! Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."-John 14:6 "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."-Matthew 10:33 “For the wages of sin is death (hell), but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”-Romans 6:23
This is the side of TH-cam I wish to stay, there aren't many informational TH-camrs out there who can deliver a spot on video with all facts within accuracy, paired with great animations. Keep it up Kurzgesagt!
@RaineeVR the last video was a train wreak and I haven't seem them correct or say anything, but at least this one seems a lot better (that sounds kinda mean I don't mean it in that way, i would also take the videos where they receive grants with a grain of salt because the last video the sponsors definitely had a say in the script. again sounds mean i dont mean it like that 😊)
Fact: There are two clinical epidemiological forms of smallpox: mild smallpox (alastrim) and severe smallpox (smallpox). Severe disease has a mortality/morbidity rate of about 15 - 40% in unvaccinated people. Death can occur as early as the 2nd or 3rd day, but most die in the 2nd week.
I'm a bit sad that the way "scientists realized" cowpox could be effective wasn't specifically mentioned (namely, the seeming immunity to the virus displayed by milkmaids). While it was still shown somewhat visually, I don't think many people will notice unless they already know. It's definitely an important part of the story, one that demonstrates that science doesn't just happen and discoveries aren't just made, but that it came from a real place, a known phoenomenon. It may not be as important on a channel meant for people already interested in science, but one of the biggest reasons it's easy for people to distrust it is that they simply don't understand how it integrates into the real world. Bridging that gap, pointing out a situation where scientists saw something already happening and spread the word, is important. It's not a part of the story of smallpox which should be forgotten.
I didn't think that was that essential. The overarching story that we realised we could widthstand cowpox was enough- I just really wish they weree super specific and said "this is the same virus, but the cow-version of it!" I also wish they had mentioned that birds, fish, reptiles and hundreds of other mammals have their own version of smallpox
I don't know if it's because of this but in my country we use to call a very lucky person as a "lechero (milkman)" or "lechera (milkmaid)". I wonder if this comes from the times where this people were considered to be lucky for not developing such a terrible disease.
In this case, there was the clue that cowpox lesions looked similar to smallpox lesions, so nature was pointing in a 'look over there, this could be interesting' way. Once someone stated looking at cowpox its neutralizing effects were going to be found.
yes it was when we could working together but we can also weaponized the virus so what if russia use its smallpox sample to create a new biological weapon ? so in 1978 even if we were in cold war soviet us and china could work together for humanity common good i dont see that today, russia turn to be openly hostile to us and we are in logic to be hostile against china, russia and iran
Thank you so much for these videos. It’s vital that we never forget the horror of smallpox, or how we unified to beat it back and eventually destroy it completely. Sharing this far and wide.
The only counter argument i can see here is that they might be using an extreme situation as advertising for relaxing the regulations on drug safety etc.. Unless you're some sort of anime villain character that thinks that smallpox was needed to contain the population growth, and that killing it doomed the planet or something.
I have just been reading a piece on normalcy bias, and I was struck by the closing points of this video. A major driver of the antivaccination movement being so strong these days, is that we don't see the effect of contagious disease on a daily basis, and so lose a sense of what it is we are trying to avoid.
The reason some anti-vaxxers exist is because they don't want to receive the Mark of the Beast as described in The Book of Revelation. Anybody who receives the mark is damned to burn in hell after they die. That mark will be required to participate in the global economy and anybody without the mark will be sought to be killed or starve to death as they cannot purchase things as basic as food. So when vaccine passports became required everybody freaked tf out.
Couple things I've picked up over the years pertinent to this video: the ccr5 delta 32 gene mutation is believed by scientists to have developed in Northern Europeans as a response to this virus or one very similar. The way I remember reading it, there's A cell organelle that protrudes from our cells that HIV, Small Pox, and the Black Plague use to infiltrate our cells. This mutation recesses this organelle, making it much, much more difficult for these viruses to get in. If you have 2 copies of this mutation, you're effectively immune to these viruses. The only HIV patients to be truly cured of HIV did so upon receiving marrow donations from people with the double mutation.
One Bacteria I was curious to see ya'll discuss is Anthrax. I had to take a vaccine for Anthrax a few years ago, but I'm curious to how it works and what makes it dangerous.
Damn, i had no idea it was THAT nasty of a disease and it's fascinating to see how they starter combating the spread of the infection with the variolation!
The US has also misplaced some samples of it. One guy left it out in the middle of a lab. I think a janitor found it. I think we also had some grad students find a sample while cleaning out a cooler in their school lab.
They killed one monster, but they can create a new one, maybe even from scratch (pun not intended)... Evolution is blind and still manages to come up with terrifying things. Now imagine you give it the eyes...
I began to be so sensitive to those topics, and the way (at the and of the video) you talked of the light of vaccines, that i almost cry every time. The topics like cancer and viruses are very important to me since the death of my uncle (April). I study natural science in university and i want to tank you for all the amazing things you spread on the web. Things that normally i heard At uni.
Humanity has so much potential to do incredibly good things. It's just figuring out how to get the will to accomplish such things, and the perspective to view all of humanity as our "us", instead of the tribal "us vs them" attitudes that are still so prevalent.
sorry but the window closed in 2014 i dont see russia working again with us and china seem to turn to be hostile to us, so we stuck in another agressive cold war for next 30 years
@@indifferentdrifter506Biden could've ended war in Ukraine in a matter of months by providing weapons necessary to defeat Russian Army to the UAF (which US have incredibly large amount in storage) but he didn't and hundreds of thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands more will die. Actually just approving sales of HIMARS to UAF in 2021 would've prevented the War from happening. Its not just Trump who is made of $h!t, its most of US politicians.
What unsettles me is that, thus far, smallpox is the _only_ disease that humanity has completely eradicated. This leads me to believe that we do, indeed, have the recourses with which to completely wipe out a fair few illnesses - we just haven't yet.
With so many more people on the planet, and with so many of them rejecting vaccines, it's unlikely that we will ever completely eradicate another pandemic.
That's cos smallpox only infects humans, so immunizing humans is all that's necessary. A lot of other transmitted diseases are zoonotic and can jump between species, making them harder to eradicate.
Don't forget about Viktor Zhdanov, the Soviet scientist that called on the WHO and the international community to take on smallpox. He also worked to keep science communication open between the Soviet Union and the west through the cold war. The eradication campaign wouldn't have happened without his contributions!
@@MontgomerygolfgatorThat's a fun fact to what I already knew. There was indeed the Cold War and a global movement wouldn't have been possible if there was no one to mediate between the two superpowers. Thanks for the info!
@@Montgomerygolfgatoryup, at that period in time, the West and the Communist Bloc were at a period of relaxed engagement so scientific cooperations were done and is still relevant today, such as the Apollo-Soyuz space project.
@@saebre. That's probably on purpose, as Jenner gets ALL the credit in standard tellings of the vaccine story. Indeed those narrations often don't even mention the prior practice of variolation at all, from which the idea of vaccination arose. It's a very Great Man way of narrating history, and both Kurzgesagt and historians in general try to avoid indulging that practice.
I'm currently studying to become a STEM teacher, and want to use Kurzgesagt videos in my lectures. Your ability to make complex topics accessible to kids is unparalleled!
I honestly never read up on or knew anything about Smallpox. Never knew it was so deadly, and in school I only learned about the Plague. So thanks for this short intro to this nasty one! Learned something new today :)
In a way it's sad we are not this united as a species anymore. Almost like we need a common enemy to have empathy for one another. No common enemy and we turn on ourselves
We do have a common enemy though. Climate change is almost certainly the biggest threat to humanity we've ever faced. Not so much with the unity yet though.
my favorite channel on youtube hands down. every episode is a treat and i'm so glad there are amazing people like you guys out there to spread knowledge in such a fun and artistic way. much love.
A very serene video of such a dark topic. How much more could you describe a thousand year plague that destroyed millions in a more artistic way then this. It tells a powerful story of powerless people rising against a great threat & finally overcoming it once & for all It reminds us that not all the heroes are dead & that they live among us. (I arrived early.)
Imagine being a species that eradicated one of its biggest killers, only for it to possibly come back because there are too many members of your species who dont believe the records your species has kept.
GOD'S STANDARD FOR HEAVEN IS PERFECTION AND ONLY JESUS (THE SON OF GOD/GOD IN THE FLESH) LIVED THAT PERFECT LIFE! HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE & TOOK THE WRATH OF THE FATHER ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS! GOD IS JUST SO HE MUST PUNISH SIN & HE IS HOLY SO NO SIN CAN ENTER HIS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. IF YOU ARE IN CHRIST ON JUDGEMENT DAY GOD WILL SEE YOU AS HIS PERFECT SON (SINLESS SINCE YOUR SINS ARE COVERED BY JESUS' OFFERING). YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE TO REJECT JESUS' GIFT/SACRIFICE & PAY FOR YOUR OWN SIN WITH DEATH (HELL) BUT THAT SEEMS PRETTY FOOLISH! GOD SEES & HEARS EVERYTHING YOU HAVE SAID & DONE. YOU WONT WIN AN ARGUMENT WITH HIM & YOU CANT DEFEND ANY OF YOUR SINS TO HIM. YOU'RE NOT A GOOD PERSON, I'M NOT A GOOD PERSON... ONLY GOD IS GOOD! WE'RE ALL GUILTY WITHOUT ACCEPTING JESUS' SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS! MUHAMMAD DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, BUDDHA DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, NO PASTOR/NO PRIEST/NO SAINT/NO ANCESTOR DIED FOR YOUR SINS, MARY DIDN'T, THE POPE DIDN'T EITHER, NO IDOLS OR FALSE gods DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO MUSICIAN OR CELEBRITY DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO INFLUENCER OR TH-cam STAR DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO SCIENTIST OR POLITICIAN DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO ATHLETE OR ACTOR DIED FOR YOUR SINS! STOP IDOLIZING & WORSHIPING THESE PEOPLE! Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."-John 14:6 "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."-Matthew 10:33 “For the wages of sin is death (hell), but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”-Romans 6:23
@@JESUSCHRIST-ONLYWAYTOHEAVENok, this is not a video about religion, and you are still praising god since he saved your life, while the smallpox scientists could have been the ones who are the reason why you are born. Please do not insult other religions, but acknowledge them. I do not mean to be rude to you or your religion, but the scientists may have saved your life.
It was not the cow per se that gave Jenner the idea. It’s the milkmaid. She had the pox but it doesn’t seem to affect her the way small pox did. It turned out, she got the immunity by being exposed to cowpox from, well, milking the infected cows, hence giving Jenner the idea that they could actually use the virus from cowpox for them to develop immunity against the lethal smallpox. Correct me if I’m wrong? (I wrote this comment based on my knowledge that I got from nursing school 😅)
Yep you’re 100% correct! Funny enough this man tested the theory on his son, by first exposing him to cowpox, waiting for him to recover and exposed him to smallpox lmao
Correct for the most part. The only thing I would add is that supposedly milkmaids were known for beauty and complexion, which may well have helped inspire the research as to why milkmaids were less vulnerable to the pox. Of course, smallpox is not the only disease which has those symptoms. Cowpox obviously (which does actually affect humans, though usually from cow to human transmission), chickenpox, and syphilis, the latter of which was known as the Great Pox, and hence smallpox and its variants were distinguished from them. So it might not have been immediately obvious that milkmaids were getting cowpox, and then not getting ill from smallpox, especially to people of the time.
In case anyone's curious, Rabies is #1, and in terms of mortality rate, it's not even close. We've had a rabies vaccine for 100 years. We also have a post-infection protocol (the shot) that now works nearly perfectly. In spite of all of this, my estimate is that since 1924, there have been roughly 1.7 million cases of symptomatic rabies. 19 survived.
Still in total rabies has killed a lot less, in the same amount of time smallpox killed 500 million. But yes by mortality rate rabies wins. Prions have higher ones though, like kuru. Which is a full 100% as of this point and CWD (chronic wasting disease in deers) is also an 100% killer.
"... One of two things happen, either your immune system wrestles back control, heavy weapons are dispatched, killing infected cells, cleaning up the thousands of infections one by one, killing variola wherever it can be found, so you can begin to recover. The immune system will forever remember variola, making you immune forever. Or, you die :D" -Kurzgesagt being Kurzgesagt
Literally tearing up at 8:16. "Variola, the scourge of humanity, was dead." Also, today I learned that today is the anniversary of the official eradication date of smallpox.
Okay so I’m not the only one tearing up at the fact that even though humanity is so fucked up we still managed to work together towards a common goal and eradicate this horrible virus
This is one of my favorite channels! Thank you for keeping the intro. Many channels are removing them to shorten the length of videos. Always love your videos!
That's why small pox was so scary. No one notices it's infection until it suddenly takes over, killing you in less than a day. There was a common saying to describe it's rapid effect: Merry at breakfast; dead by noon.
A truly classic Kurzgesagt episode. Your depiction of the way smallpox kills the human body was existential dread inducing. Bravo! Are those cell posters available digitally?
We talk a lot about how we humans are a violent species, because we make wars and bombs, but we don't spend nearly enough time talking about how as a species we've also come together to achieve incredible things like this.
well I mean to be fair, to the virus this is basically a nuclear weapon:) I mean we eradicated an entire species (if you consider viruses alive, an ongoing debate)
Continue learning about the fascinating world of biology with our Human Cell Poster, exclusively available here: shop.kgs.link/human-cell
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Saw an excellent cartoon about this. A kid asks his mother what the scar on her arm was "It's a scar from the smallpox vaccine." The kid asks why he doesn't have one and the mother replied "Because it worked."
I hate anti vaxxers
true. this iswhy ihate anti-vaxxers,they'dwant to send us back to those times because of their rebellious idiocy.
This is absolutely adorable
Deep
The round scars on peoples arms are from the polio vaccine not smallpox
Before my first deployment I received a small-pox vaccine. The medic used a small forked needle dipped in the vaccine to puncture the skin of my shoulder and wiggle it around a bit. The result was a necrotic lesion about the size of a half-dollar coin, a fever, and two or three days of body aches. I still have a scar on my shoulder from the inoculation site. I had ONE lesion and was in bed for 3 days feeling rough while my body fought a version of the disease that wasn't even effective against my species. I cannot IMAGINE the suffering that someone with an actual case of small pox must have endured. By the end, death must've been a sweet release. It's frightening to see the caliber of threat required to get humanity to work together.
Reading about the ways that some people died from smallpox is nightmare material. Some of the most severe cases would result in people having their skin sloughing off. Photos are also terrifying. I just wish I could personally thank all the people involved in making sure that I never, ever had to worry about catching this horrible disease.
May countries still administered the vaccine as late as the 90’s I have a scar from it too.
Were all of these issues because of the vacine or because the forked needle wasn't properly sterilized? Because that can also cause serious infections
@@d00mnoodleyea I was thinking that too
@@d00mnoodle same, I too want to know
It is worth noting that Smallpox was the *ideal* virus to eradicate. Its particular traits made it extremely deadly but also extremely easy to target by coordinated vaccination efforts. Most other viruses are nowhere near so considerate.
All viruses are easy to target except for ones with extremely long incubation period since most viruses are extremely host specific
@@foolishball9155 It's a bit of a double edge sword; yes, lot of viruses are host specific and therefore are easily detectable. However, viruses also rapidly evolve thanks to how easy it is for mRNA (the chemical method by which a virus hijacks it's host) to mutate due to the lack of proofreading proteins. These mutations could very easily give viral offspring immunities that it's parents never had the luxury of having.
That and while we have one or two kids that take 18 years to mature, viruses have multiple hundreds of progeny that mature seconds after they're born; they just evolve way faster than we do out of sheer numbers
IIRC the main 2 factors were that it was human-only, and that symptoms showed BEFORE it was contagious
@@foolishball9155 Most of the viruses that you commonly get (cold flu and our newest friend the coronavirus) are able to infect a large portion of at least the mammals(ebola and some other nasty stuff would fall into this too, even things that aren't viruses like anthrax, malaria, and the plague). As an additional problem many viruses effectively prevent the immune system from detecting them or normally functioning (HIV, Hepatitis C) which further complicates the issue.
Viruses that we could reasonably have a chance at eradicating would be polio... maybe the viral Hepatitis depending on how much we reduce the price of the magic pill?
Without further technical advancement in either genetic modification, or medical technology (wide band virophages or something) most RNA viruses will be uncontrolled (due to their modification speed) along with those that have a wide spectrum of hosts.
@@RipRLeeErmey yeah it is true that RNA viruses evolve way faster than DNA viruses. There are more DNA viruses but most of them are not deadly disease except the ones that cause cancer like HPV. My point does not hold much water in case of highly mutatable viruses.
My fathers grandmother survived this virus on her own. More than half the village died as she remembers it. Her mother, father and 8 other siblings died from it, she was the only one to survive. Fun fact, she never got sick of anything after this in her life and lived over 90 years.
That isnt a fun fact. HER family died and she lived in place so that they are not forgotten.
Please vaccinate
She was the only survivor of 9?
My dads little brother is too the only raven haired of the 9 siblings. Everyone knows he is illegitimate.
So... I think she owes her life to the resistance genes of her biologic father.
@@adamnesico It happen more than 100 years ago so idk for sure. 😂 Could also be some recessive genes that others from her family didn't get...
she was the one human that got the genetic mutation to beat variola
luck
it's really so frustrating to see people in developed nations protesting vaccines. as someone in a developing nation, where people would do anything for access to such healthcare, it feels like we've truly learnt nothing from our history.
People are protesting against the covid vax, not all vaccines
The problem was it became politicized, information became readily available, and knowledge became more widespread. The covid-19 vaccine was protested against because people were aware. They saw the Vaccine didn't really help anybody, caused more side effects than help, and really only became a tool for politicized control rather than an actual cure. The covid vaccine did not help anybody as people were still contracting the virus, and even showed worse side effects than those who didn't get it. Side effects like heart problems became apparent very quickly, but despite all these occurances, governments still restricted freedoms, stifled conflicting views, and profited themselves off the chaos instead of being a force for good.
fr
@@vinsente6752same difference. But...yeah...certain brand is dangerous...
@@vinsente6752 There are people who oppose all vaccines.
Fun fact: Cowpox is where we get the word "vaccine." It comes from scholarly Latin "vaccina," which means "pertaining to a cow."
there is no good reason for that word to exist
Yes, it's currently used in Italian language as well
@@milckshakebeans8356 which word, cowpox? Do you prefer it to be split like "cow pox"? SMH my head
@@jongyon7192p ment "vaccina" in latin
@@milckshakebeans8356 cuz it kinda looks like another word?
If you didn't knew , the last person to die from small pox was Janet Parker. In 1978, Parker was a medical photographer at England's Birmingham University Medical School. She worked one floor above the Medical Microbiology Department where staff and students conducted smallpox research.
Poor girl
@@JokeswithMitochondria l was curious about ur usernamee so cIicked on ur profiIe. Wasn’t disappointed lol
Smallpox is often the reason why people used to have 10 babies, with the expectation that a few will make it to adulthood. People asked how did ancient people live without vaccines, the answer was, they didn't. They just had more babies so more could die without wiping out humanity. Look at cemeteries from the 1800s and you will see a lot of children's graves.
Now I wonder why she wasn't vaccinated
Probably for similar reasons as the idiots today
i just think calling non-immune cells “civilian cells” is really funny and perfectly descriptive
haha true
The moment I heard it I thought I'm adding that to my vocabulary lol
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5 nah bro it's the civilian cells doing their work as usual
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5It's bots like these that make Christianity look like a joke
pathogens: tfym war crimes im just trying to propagate
In case you all were wondering, the cow that had cowpox was named Blossom.😊
How cute
@@JokeswithMitochondrial I was curious from ur usernamee so cIicked on ur profiIe. Wasn’t disappointed lol
is ur icon supposed to make ppl think they have a hair on their screen.
@@JokeswithMitochondriaI got curious about ur username so clicked on ur profile. Wasn’t disappointed lol
@@ListenimtooshyalrightI saw an extremely similar interaction to this on an unrelated video, I think these two users might be bots? Or at least one person
The successful international effort during the 1960s to eradicate smallpox was headed by Czech physician and epidemiologist Karel Raška. His new concept of eliminating the disease was adopted by the WHO in 1967 and eventually led to the eradication of smallpox in 1977. Raška was also a strong promoter of the concept of disease surveillance, which was adopted in 1968 and has since become a standard practice in epidemiology.
ok
Yet covid got out
@@AnonYmous-yu6hv I don't blame the czech for that. It was a US-funded chinese lab
@@tafazzi-on-discord weird how the people 'making everything about race' are reactionaries like you
@@frozenfeet4534 I'm not sure what you mean by reactionary. I'm a simple italian that finds the american worship of blacks and women not only distasteful, but annoying. Yes, kurtzgesagt is german but look at the sponsor of this video.
My great grandfather and grandmother ALWAYS talked about diseases back when they were young. Mostly comparing it to how well he have it now. Some of the stories from my grandfather include the smallpox hysteria, how his father somehow got it while out of the country, and died before even making it home to the US. When they had a vaccine for it, he talked about how he actually got choked up so that nobody would have to suffer that fate anymore. I've seen the wounds smallpox leaves, I couldn't imagine having to live with them.
Nutshell inspires me.. My parents said if i get 40K followers They'd buy me a professional camera for recording..begging u guys , literally
Begging.
You already have 41K subs @@namantherockstar
@@namantherockstar40k now its 50k kids just lying to get subs
@@namantherockstarLmao did you really think this TH-camr's name is 'Nutshell'?? 😂
What a timely video to pop up on my feed today. I just took my 1-year old for her 12 month vaccines this morning (mumps, measles, rubella) and my heart broke hearing her cry from the shots. But I know that it’s necessary for her protection and I’m so grateful we can protect our children!
Ehhhheh..
Do you have FACTS that show the efficacy and safety of that MMR vaccine?
Factual, unbiased facts I mean. : )
Do you know about the kids who died due to effects of MMR vaccines, or suffered severe consequences, permanent damage to their health? O_o
Why would MMR vaccination necessary for her protection?
How can you "protect" your children? From what? How does that "mytical" protection work? What are the efficacy and safety levels of that protection? o__O
@@Steel9k 1. First link in the description.
2. Far far, far fewer, both in raw numbers and rate-adjusted percentages, than the kids who died or got permanent health issues of measles, mumps, and/or rubella.
3. Kurzgesagt has a video on how vaccines work.
4. Better than 80%, and even that may be lowballing it.
@@The_Epicness9000
". First link in the description."
No, no real evidence that would be adequate in the description.
Its the same old provax propaganda and lies.
"2. Far far, far fewer, both in raw numbers and rate-adjusted percentages, than the kids who died or got permanent health issues of measles, mumps, and/or rubella."
Yeah, because of manipulation of statistics and due to better living conditions, better nutrition, fresh water etc. Not due to vaccinations.
"3. Kurzgesagt has a video on how vaccines work."
A propaganda video, containing lies and not talking about the severe side effects vaccines cause.
"4. Better than 80%, and even that may be lowballing it."
You could just say ~ 4000 %
If you lie, do it proudly :D
@The_Epicness9000 what did Steel9k say? Their comment is gone
@@masterofdoots5965 i gather something super fooking dumb
I had a friend at school in the 70s who had suffered smallpox as a baby. She was one of the final few people in our country to have it. Fortunately, her face, hands and neck only had a few mild scars. The scarring on her arms was shocking. I never saw the rest of her body.
Lol
@@Christopher-qq4dlwtf
Thankfully he had the Variola Minor
The Scarring is real and I still have scars on my chest and below the neck and even one fairly small but noticeable bump on my neck.
Nutshell inspires me.. My parents said if i get 40K followers They'd buy me a professional camera for recording..begging u guys , literally
Begging.
The revelation came when doctors noticed milk maids didnt get small pox and most farmers showed immunity as well. So when they looked at cowpox, they realized small pox had the same markers, so immunity to one meant immunity to the other.
Markers? Dont you mean proteins?
@@rehanhossainalim6038yes same thing probably just different words
It was Edward Jenner
@@rehanhossainalim6038pretty sure by markers he means symptoms. Around that time they wouldn’t have been able to see exactly how viruses ticked and so symptoms would be the way they could tell the difference.
@@Bobbhgf yup he was variolated , one of his teachers (?) was also a milkmaid and said "that's ok, but i had cow pox so I can't get small pox" and that sentence basically set up his life's dedication to the disease
The cowpox virus was also known as "vaccinia" from the Latin "vacca" for cow. Since actual cowpox was used to "vaccinate", it's where the word vaccine comes from in the first place!
Cool info. I like trivia stuff like that.
Something so obvious and yet something I had no idea about. In Spanish vaccine is "vacuna" which is even closer.
Funnily enough the first serial killer to be identified asuch in the 1970s was from _Vaccaville, CA_ and his name is Ed Kemper
Yes, I wonder how it did not fit in the video
the erradication of smallpox is a prime example of just what humans are capable of, and that we are capable of working together. You can be pessimistic, but i think humans are still capable of massive species wide feats like this.
The greatest opening words of a Wikipedia article are “Smallpox was”
Reminds me of Exurbia's video
@@oightKoreraAreEditablewas about to comment about it
@@seecresy oh sorry didnt see the reply, the video? "Misery was" if irc!
If you mean who I was replying to, I was just replying to the comment itself!
Technically, it still is because of those two samples
& yet the worst picture ever is right next to it..
Smallpox being eradicated is probably one of the largest achievements humanity has ever done, at least in my opinion. It gives me so much pride in humanity to know that we have eradicated it.
Yeah well, there’s still other diseases, much, much more terrifying than smallpox
Now if only we can eradicate Tik Tok
@@AverageWagie2024Really wish it'd get banned, not only is it disruptive it's also making the next generation's attention span go at an all-time low. 😔
Really doesn't matter, let people have fun. Drug, crime, immagration, and war crisises and your worried about people watching 10sec vids over 10min??
*COVID-19@@AverageWagie2024
Big fan of you guys! You all played a role in me deciding to become a biochemistry major and later go into medicine to be a doctor! Just graduated from med school, in my medicine residency, and I still love watching the videos you make! Keep up the good work! (And of course your soundtrack music on Spotify has been a large part of my study background music this entire time!) Excellent work!
Congratulations on your success! 😻👍
just pretend ur researching for a kurzgesagt video
Congrats
When I was growing up, my family had a World Book encyclopedia from 1974, and later got ahold of one from 1982. As some of us do, I went through that weird phase where you get fascinated by diseases, and I was fixated on Smallpox. It just so happened that this coincided with us getting the newer version of the set.
At the time, I just thought it was funny that the older one was "wrong" since smallpox had been eradicated and it was out of date.
But one of the things I noticed at the time, which is truly striking today, is that the first sentence in the different editions were nearly identical, except that the second had one miniscule difference. It had a most terrible word replaced with a most lovely one.
"is" had become "was"
That last bit reminds me of a Vsauce video from some years ago.
Edit: nope, it was an exurb1a video, I'm dumb haha.
Smallpox was scary
@@JokeswithMitochondriaur userrname got me curious and I cIicked on ur profiIee. Was not dissappointed ahaha
It’s truly amazing when such a terrible disease that *was* the scourge of humanity for countless millennia becomes a was. But it’s also terrifying that to an extent it still exists. Not just in token laboratories, but frozen in Siberian permafrost, waiting to melt and unleash it’s horror on the world again.
Wow so deep. Then everyone clapped alongside exhurbia
"The human body has adapted countless defense mechanisms that can completely exterminate any intruders"
Variola: Hold my 200 genes
Most anti-immune tactics are about tricking the immune system because it is not intelligent or sentient.
If it responds based of preprogrammed instructions and chemical ones you can easily trick it, sadly.
I love science humor 😭
Yeah the immune system arms race is absolutely nuts. Basically, viruses (and to some extent bacteria) evolve so much faster than us that our immune system gave up and said "ok but whatever doesn't kill us will never be able to hurt us again" and rolled 30 thousand dice. with the obvious shortcoming that all a pathogen needs to do is kill us the first time.
@@iluvpandas2755 It does and doesn't. The adaptive immune system has the capacity for somatic hypermutation. Regions of your DNA that purposefully rip themselves apart and recombine to form new antibodies and the space of possible variant targets is extremely large. It's a programmed process but it allows the immune system to target things it isn't programmed for.
Thank you Edward Jenner!!!
For noticing the Cow pox and the cow maids who never got small pox. He had a scientific hypothesis and was able to replicate it and gave us one of the greatest discoveries in human history!
My parents have their smallpox vaccination scar. And I remember as a kid asking what it was, because I didn’t have one…and why I didn’t need one.
Considering how much we're letting our vaccination campaigns wane, now I want to take a few days off and get one!!
Edward Jenner was a menace, he infected his son with cow pox, and to prove his hypothesis then proceeded to infect his son with the real virus. Luckily, his hypothesis was true
Fun fact: the cow maids never getting it is also the reason for the "beautiful farm maid" thing - most over people would be scarred by smallpox.
And tested that hypothesis by infecting a KID with it!!!
Thanks Edward Jenner
"We are still protected by the light, but it is cooling each and every day, and we it to those who will come after us to make sure it doesn't go out. We killed one monster. We can do it again."
Wow, that was inspirational
"Open Philantrophy" foundation funded this video, of course they`ll use lurid phrases to advertise furture vaccines.
In 1972, Yugoslavia had an outbreak of smallpox, it was the largest outbreak in Europe after the Second World War. I recently read about it, very fascinating! They vaccinated eighteen (18) million citizens in about one month.
Da, takođe i Srbija ima taj virus u labaratoriji obezbeđen. Yes, Serbia also has a sample of it secured in a lab.
@@4kta you mean vaccine right? RIGHT?
Serbia shouldn't have sample of the virus
@@4kta ima se, može se
@@4ktaYup. There are two places where the virus is still contained as the video said.
The one one in Siberia, and the one in the USA.
Edit: Siberia, not Serbia… lol
@@Deboned_butter No, it's in Russia not Serbia
Smallpox is truly the stuff of nightmares
👍
Nice
very nice
Nice
Good
Its Crazy how a what was a small passion project is now one of the biggest science outlets in TH-cam
Keep it up!
Nutshell inspires me.. My parents said if i get 40K followers They'd buy me a professional camera for recording..begging u guys , literally
Begging...
@@namantherockstarwork. Saving up for the camera. It would teach you something.
@@miji6267 just report the comment, its a generic spam account. (Ive seen this same comment with the name altered spammed on like 10 different channels)
Yeah kurzgesagt is awesome it’s great how it became such a popular and significant channel from a humble start
i loved them from the start🥹, im glad im still here
Virologist postdoc here! Just wanna thank you on your excellent video on smallpox and Edward Jenner! Know that your video is used to educate future immunology undergrads.
Can I suggest Poliovirus next? It's just a really interesting disease/virus with real life visual social impacts like iron lungs and kids in crutches.
Iron Lung lore
aren't we on the verge of defeating polio too? (only Afghanistan and Pakistan left to go)
@@orangecitrus8056 WHAT?! It's STILL in the Indian Subcontinental Region in the north?! HOW?!
@@itsoddsquad it's the last place in the entire world
I love how these cells are refered to as civilian cells, immune cells (military cells) and heavy weapon cells. It really does bring home the fact that the whole body is a whole community working side by side to ensure the continuation of the whole. The only reason why the body would kill cells in itself would be if the cells did harm to the overall system and there was no better way to deal with the matter.
Unfortunately the body in some areas like this one can be tricked into killing it's own cells.
Didnt know cells also do immune cell brutality
there's a lot more roles...you have engineer cells (cd4 helper cells->th1/th2), comms/scouting/foe recognition cells (dendritic cells), interrogation/patrol cells (macrophages/follicular dendritic cells), discipline cells (IL10/cd25 cells), 'automated terminator/robotic division' cells (nk cells), caretaker cells (microglia), heavy weapon/ballistic/grav mines (b cells), self assembly nanobot attacks (complement/MAC), builder/repair cells (platelets), education/teacher cells (mtecs). It's nothing short of awe inspiring the degree of specialisation/flexibility our body has.
The cells in our bodies evolved before joing together for survival purposes (multi-celled organism as opposed to single-cell).
Through cooperation, despite their differences, they feed and defend eachother. Ironic that humans as a species often discriminate against anyone not belonging to their "tribe" when this mass diversity of cells is what holds all of us together. Poetically though, you could argue that multiculturalism and tolerance resides in all of us as we are literally made of these qualities.
@@trololkhil9868 when I studied It in Biology I was in awe at the level of organization the inmune system has with the body. It makes me wonder if how we organized our society where people specialize in a task, is evolutionary emergent from the same system that makes our bodies work like this
Amazing how from such humble beginnings and human cooperation, we were able to eradicate an entire disease. It’s inspiring, hope we can unite like that more in the future
Wish we did that from the period of late 2019-2021 when we had the chance to instead of have leaders try and hope for it to go away on its own before turning that shit into a political issue when it was always going to be a human issue...
There was like 1 guy and hearsay. Then a bunch of copying.
Yeah if only there was some recent opportunity to do just that yet apparently it was all 'fake news'
Well maybe we should all come together and eradicate those who are against it
It’s due to desperation that might wipe out all of humanity. They didn’t care until the pandemic knocked on their bubbles and doors 😂 just like covid.. see what happened to ebola… the rest of the world still busy about watching Kardashians 😂
You know, this is proof that when humans come together, we can solve any problem. And with all the problems going around in the world, unity can indeed help save the world..
Theres only 2 of that cases hovewer. Stop super-high emissions and to cure smallpox
It'd be neat if we actually did
Not when we have right wing lunatics.
not super high emissions, we saved the ozone layer via banning CFCs worldwide.@@Idoexist._.
a major part of the politicians job is to allocate money to the scientists who discover what the best method of fixing an issue is and a major part of the job of industry is to take more money from the politicians to implement what the scientist discovered. the taskforces that ended smallpox or CFC usage didnt come about from everyone staying in their lane. everyone needs to work together and work to their strengths as well.@@content_enjoyer4458
I watched this video then watched the cancer one, and it just makes me think how this disease could’ve just been the “cancer” in the past. And it’s even more unbelievable to think that even cancer could be eliminated in the future! Incredible.
Hearing something so deadly get eradicated will never not be satisfying to hear
It is far less talked about, but in my opinion, the eradication of smallpox is a human achievement on par with the moon landing or the internet. Arguably beyond them.
I got some unfortunate facts about human behavior if you feel that way.
@@Leyrannabsolutely it's the greatest thing our species has accomplished
@@Leyrann several of the people that got us to the moon or internet probably would have died to smallpox for sure.
None of these clowns on this channel are Drs !! They even admit it !! We’re a team of illustrators, animators, number crunchers and one dog who aim to spark curiosity about science and the world we live in. To us nothing is boring if you tell a good story. Read the # 1 Best selling book VIRUS MANIA- written by a real Dr. !!Thanks
Every time I see a proclamation of a human triumph over a disease, I feel an overwhelming amount of awe and patriotism towards the human race which I'm a part of. It almost brings me to tears every time I see the indomitable will of man brought down like a hammer unto our enemies.
It's too bad that within the same human race, there's anti-vaxers and people against immunity of deadly and threatening viruses, claiming the vaccines have "worse" implications. Some people are such idiots.
Yeah and there are anti-vaxxers. Just imagine, right? A humanity found the way to eliminate the disease, but there are people like "nah it turns me into a cow, I'll better die". And they are still freaking exists.
Nuclear bomb.
The real hammer.
@@Steel9k A double-sided hammer that the human race uses to hit itself, yes. Rather makes me less patriotic for the human race, that one.
@@eoffsock
Don't forget of provaxers.
Those weirdos claim their vaccines work.
In the same time they are terrified of unvaccinated peoole, and wage a war against the unvaccinated, against human rights, self determination and against freedom.
I guess infectious diseases are not the true enemy, since there are still plenty of infectious disease after so many vaccination programmes.
Provaxers must wage their annoying wars. Is it not strange, mate?
The line "we killed one monster. We can do it again." Is so metal. Fantastic.
Too bad it's not really that simple with total most of other viruses even if 'we' have had such a wish. Even worse is 'we' don't have such a wish and a large part of 'us' is actively fighting this tendency.
@@ShadeAKAhayate When "we" also create scarier monsters to get better at killing them, and the people who create the monsters supposedly find one in the wild that looks like one they would have created, and the media censors, ridicules, or slanders the people who point this out, then yeah, you're going to get people fighting it, even if every part of the process is in the best interest of the people fighting it.
I’m a college student right now taking biology but I don’t know what I want to specialise in, this video honestly inspires me to pursue microbiology and eventually research diseases
Same here! Between this channel and Snake Discovery, I’m split between microbiology and herpetology. I might just go with both, honestly
I hope everything goes well wether you end up pursuing microbiology or not
Microbiology emphasizes in microbes. Virologist focus on viruses.
yyou should the information is really interesting. may I recommend RoanokeGaming who is a pathophysiologist who breaks down and analyses fictional diseases and sometimes organisms. it's pretty fascinating and i think it can give you a taste of what you'll be learning so you can see if you really want to study it.
yeah, i think you should the topic is really fascinating. May i recommend you check out RoanokeGaming? He's a pathophysiologist (studies disease and how it spreads) to give you a feel of what you'd likely be learning. I find his breakdowns of fictional diseases (zombie, parasites, ect.) to be quite interesting, albeit it's likely simplised so everyone can enjoy it.
I don't know why this made me so emotional especially towards the end.
Humanity indeed can do seemingly impossible things together but we are separated by the boundaries we ourselves created. We are our own roadblock.
@content_enjoyer4458I'd say that's the opposite of naive
@@content_enjoyer4458no that view is very wise anything but naive
@@content_enjoyer4458 Care to explain why this view is naive? I think it's merely a fact that humanity could've achieved a lot more if we wouldn't fight ourselves for dubios reasons...
The thing with the cow is that the scientist noticed that milkmaids never got smallpox. Thats when he got the idea of cowpox protecting against smallpox.
It takes presence of mind to notice such a thing.
5:16 "or you Die" so nonchalantly
Apart from everything else the animation is so well done. Explains everything at such ease and in a fun and thrilling way! Hats off!
7:21
Aww, Cowpox looks adorable
Glad im not the only one who thought so
The last outbreak of Variola vera in Europe happened in Yugoslavia in 1972. It was quickly put under control and thousands of people were vaccinated in short time to stop it from spreading.
Variola: *exists*
The global medical community: "Contain that motherf**cker!"
The last known natural case of smallpox was in 1977, in Somalia.
It was declared eradicated from nature in 1980.
I lived in the small town of Berkeley, UK for years. It always fascinated me that Edward Jenner (the father of the vaccine and who discovered the link with cowpox) lived in the house opposite. His house is now a museum
My grandma actually was really happy when smallpox was eradicated, as well as when the polio vaccine came out. She got polio as a kid and lost some hearing, so hearing about diseases getting thrown out the metaphorical airplane window makes her happy
It still occasionally blows my mind that we are a collection of an untold number of cells all doing there own thing functioning independently. Like when we get sick theres a whole network of immune cells that respond that we aren't even conscious of. These cells have intelligence's of there own. It almost feels like we're walking talking universes to a multitude of microscopic life forms. Freaky when you think about it.
All thanks to 'emergence' simple things creating something more complex together. From the quarks to the atoms, to molecules to cells, tissues and organs and eventually you. From you to your local environment, from that to societies to a species. Like letters in a word, a sentence in a book. It's cool that these simple things create such complex outcomes!
Folks go on about the perfection of creation.
I point out auto immune responses and how our bodies defense's can overwhelm our ability to heal trying to fight disease or even injury.
They tell me it's a lie. I have to point to smallpox. It hits us hard, fast, from within our immune system, breaking the chain of natural responses to illness for profit.
They claim Smallpox doesn't exist. I point out that was one of Mankinds greatest achievements and we need to do it with Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Whopping Cough and Polio.
We would only have to defeat each of them once, and our species would never need to face them again.
And either I get strong support to the idea, because they did their research about how nasty these sicknesses are. Enquiries why we haven't cured the Flu, Cancer, HIV or something else so nebulous and complex that herd immunity is a pain to develop. Or folks who claim they never had these things, so why should they get immunised. Which tells me who I shouldn't hang out with if I don't wish for a secondary infection.
Every immune cell in our bodies works independently, and complex life has been around so long it developed tools to fight back against disease, heal from it, and continue as it always had. There is a limited number of diseases out there that SPECIFICALLY adapted to our unique methods of defence and existence in the effort of finding a great new place to live. And viruses are uniquely in a position of keeping ahead or the immune response curve or dying out forever.
But no one remembers how successful the Cold is at spreading and moving on. While HIV is deadly (eventually) but terrible at spreading. While the real threats to our civilization and species are the stuff that kills you, while spreading like wildfire.
Covid-19 had that potential, to overwhelm our health systems, some nations faltered, some nations endured regardless, and yet others cut the curve and suffered very few fatalities, by keeping the case levels low.
The variation between global responses, and thus body count internationally, is wildly different not due to climate, but due to how well different strategies to manage these contagious outbreaks worked.
Covid-19 continues to exist. And if it mutates into something nasty, we might have to do it all again. But now enough people have had it to protect our species and society, hopefully. So it doesn't become the next smallpox.
We’re really trillions of little organisms all working together to stay alive
I think about this a lot. Or should I say, the trillions of cells that comprise my being think about it a lot. It's just cells thinking about cells, atoms pondering atoms, the universe peering into itself.
If a cell was as big as a human then a human would be as big as 20 Mount Everests. Imagine a blood cell going like Mach 3 speeds just to get from your feet to your head and back!
It's cool how Kurzgesagt is not just a youtube channel, it's a bloody institution. They get grants, just like a uni. Absolutely awesome. Keep up the good work guys.
The universities are not for-profit....
@@aaronhpathen why do they charge so much to go if not for profit?
@@aaronhpatell that to my hex
@@johh55College admins getting another 100k raise while students struggle to afford housing
the rest should be from taxpayer dollars, not tuition
Kek.. America moment having to pay for uni
I am old enough to have gotten vaccinated against Smallpox in school. Also the "sugar" vaccine (against Polio). I found the "scraping" easier pain wise than the Tetanus shots I have received over my life time. I remember having a sore arm for several days and the feeling of "coming down with something" for a short time. To this day I like the two Smallpox vaccine scars on my upper arm. They give me a good, safe feeling.
the vaccine scarring (also BCG's) is probably what traumatizes a lot of kids with vaccines and make them so scared of being vaccinated, because most vaccines actually don't hurt at all.
I remember the sugar cube! Nice to know I didn't have to worry about all those deadly illnesses.
Unfortunately, the smallpox vaccine only protects you for around 10 years. The last person in Britain to die of smallpox in 1978, the Birmingham medical school lab technician Janet Parker, was actually vaccinated. She died because research was still being carried out on live variola in the lab below her, despite all requests to destroy any samples of the virus worldwide, and the air from that lab vented into hers. Shortly after she died, the head of Birmingham Medical School, Henry Benson, who had authorised the work on the virus, killed himself. My Dad knew him.
thank you for your service and may the next generations have fewer anti-vaxxers than the ones before
The sugar cube sucked! Tasted like shoe polish.
I'm also one of the last in my country to have received the smallpox jab; for whatever reason it was given on my thigh (the mark is still there, plain as day). I received a bunch of vax before my 5th birthday, don't remember much about them but I do recall once getting what is called a "kiiltokuva" (lit. "shiny picture"; a type of glossy embossed scrapbook picture) in my language; they were popular at the time and doctors would frequently give those to kids who were afraid of needles. It was an orange kitten playing with a blue ball of yarn. It was one of my most treasured possessions.
As a young child I often wondered why exactly my mum had a pretty noticeable scar on her upper arm and asked her about it. She explained to me, that it was from her vaccine against smallpox, even telling me exactly how different vaccines were when she was a child. That scar is still there, still as noticeable as back then, but now that I learned this a lot more impressive. She was born in 1968
A biography I read of Catherine the Great of Russia was really awesome. She had her people go around town to town, vaccinating people against smallpox (or whatever form they did.... not sure if it was 'inoculating' or something). She had it done to herself in front of her whole court to show it wasn't a big deal. It's amazing how early on they learned this, after seeing that milkmaids didn't tend to get smallpox 'cause they'd already had the milder cowpox.
Yes, it was "inoculating". Vaccines didn't yet exist in the form we have today.
read about it in the Science museum in London. Thats how that british guy figured out the connection
GOD'S STANDARD FOR HEAVEN IS PERFECTION AND ONLY JESUS (THE SON OF GOD/GOD IN THE FLESH) LIVED THAT PERFECT LIFE! HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE & TOOK THE WRATH OF THE FATHER ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS! GOD IS JUST SO HE MUST PUNISH SIN & HE IS HOLY SO NO SIN CAN ENTER HIS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. IF YOU ARE IN CHRIST ON JUDGEMENT DAY GOD WILL SEE YOU AS HIS PERFECT SON (SINLESS SINCE YOUR SINS ARE COVERED BY JESUS' OFFERING). YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE TO REJECT JESUS' GIFT/SACRIFICE & PAY FOR YOUR OWN SIN WITH DEATH (HELL) BUT THAT SEEMS PRETTY FOOLISH! GOD SEES & HEARS EVERYTHING YOU HAVE SAID & DONE. YOU WONT WIN AN ARGUMENT WITH HIM & YOU CANT DEFEND ANY OF YOUR SINS TO HIM. YOU'RE NOT A GOOD PERSON, I'M NOT A GOOD PERSON... ONLY GOD IS GOOD! WE'RE ALL GUILTY WITHOUT ACCEPTING JESUS' SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS!
MUHAMMAD DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, BUDDHA DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, NO PASTOR/NO PRIEST/NO SAINT/NO ANCESTOR DIED FOR YOUR SINS, MARY DIDN'T, THE POPE DIDN'T EITHER, NO IDOLS OR FALSE gods DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO MUSICIAN OR CELEBRITY DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO INFLUENCER OR TH-cam STAR DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO SCIENTIST OR POLITICIAN DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO ATHLETE OR ACTOR DIED FOR YOUR SINS! STOP IDOLIZING & WORSHIPING THESE PEOPLE!
JESUS CHRIST ALONE DIED FOR YOUR SINS & WAS RESURRECTED FROM THE GRAVE! HE IS ALIVE & COMING BACK VERY VERY SOON WITH JUDGEMENT (THESE ARE END TIMES)! PREPARE YOURSELVES, TURN FROM SIN & RUN TO JESUS! HE KNOWS YOUR PAIN & TROUBLES, HE WANTS TO HEAL & RESTORE YOU! TALK TO HIM LIKE A BEST FRIEND! ASK HIM TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO YOU & HELP YOU TO BELIEVE IF YOU DOUBT! DON'T WAIT TO CRY OUT! NO ONE IS PROMISED TOMORROW! HE LONGS FOR YOU TO INVITE HIM IN, HE LOVES YOU MORE THAN ANY PERSON EVER COULD, HE CREATED YOU!
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."-John 14:6
"But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."-Matthew 10:33
“For the wages of sin is death (hell), but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”-Romans 6:23
@@JESUSCHRIST-ONLYWAYTOHEAVEN WTF is wrong with you?
@@JESUSCHRIST-ONLYWAYTOHEAVEN La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah
This is the side of TH-cam I wish to stay, there aren't many informational TH-camrs out there who can deliver a spot on video with all facts within accuracy, paired with great animations. Keep it up Kurzgesagt!
Agreed, I also like how if when they do make a mistake they do their best to correct the information which is rare but does happen
rational animations is a animated fact youtube channel!
@RaineeVR the last video was a train wreak and I haven't seem them correct or say anything, but at least this one seems a lot better (that sounds kinda mean I don't mean it in that way, i would also take the videos where they receive grants with a grain of salt because the last video the sponsors definitely had a say in the script. again sounds mean i dont mean it like that 😊)
They're all sponsored by some of the most shady organisations now.
Fun fact:
The word "vaccination" comes from the Latin word for cow "vacca"😊
I had so much fun reading that fact.
@@taxibeforesunsetclips7629 You and me both! 😁
Fact: There are two clinical epidemiological forms of smallpox: mild smallpox (alastrim) and severe smallpox (smallpox). Severe disease has a mortality/morbidity rate of about 15 - 40% in unvaccinated people. Death can occur as early as the 2nd or 3rd day, but most die in the 2nd week.
I'm a bit sad that the way "scientists realized" cowpox could be effective wasn't specifically mentioned (namely, the seeming immunity to the virus displayed by milkmaids). While it was still shown somewhat visually, I don't think many people will notice unless they already know. It's definitely an important part of the story, one that demonstrates that science doesn't just happen and discoveries aren't just made, but that it came from a real place, a known phoenomenon. It may not be as important on a channel meant for people already interested in science, but one of the biggest reasons it's easy for people to distrust it is that they simply don't understand how it integrates into the real world. Bridging that gap, pointing out a situation where scientists saw something already happening and spread the word, is important. It's not a part of the story of smallpox which should be forgotten.
Well said. Important points!
Yes, that's what I was thinking, too.
I didn't think that was that essential. The overarching story that we realised we could widthstand cowpox was enough- I just really wish they weree super specific and said "this is the same virus, but the cow-version of it!"
I also wish they had mentioned that birds, fish, reptiles and hundreds of other mammals have their own version of smallpox
I don't know if it's because of this but in my country we use to call a very lucky person as a "lechero (milkman)" or "lechera (milkmaid)". I wonder if this comes from the times where this people were considered to be lucky for not developing such a terrible disease.
In this case, there was the clue that cowpox lesions looked similar to smallpox lesions, so nature was pointing in a 'look over there, this could be interesting' way. Once someone stated looking at cowpox its neutralizing effects were going to be found.
5:39 "Until one day, humanity said: Enough"
**Shows birds**
true though💀
the hell im still not “random memer”!!!
This is a lesson that when humanity comes together, we can beat even the most horrible things on earth
Sadly we do not come together nowadays
@@JokeswithMitochondriahey dude I was curious about ur ussername so I went ahead and cIicked on ur profiIe. Had a good laugh lol
yes it was when we could working together
but we can also weaponized the virus
so what if russia use its smallpox sample to create a new biological weapon ?
so in 1978 even if we were in cold war soviet us and china could work together for humanity common good
i dont see that today, russia turn to be openly hostile to us and we are in logic to be hostile against china, russia and iran
@@JokeswithMitochondriadont worry, we will
The purpose of humanity is to make ourselves the only thing that needs to be feared
These are the kinds of videos that deserve a billion views, not music videos
True that 👍
Thank you so much for these videos. It’s vital that we never forget the horror of smallpox, or how we unified to beat it back and eventually destroy it completely. Sharing this far and wide.
Honestly it’s so invigorating to see that the world has worked together before. We can make a world that’s so much better when we work together
more like gay_on_youtube
eh, not really. humans have, and will always suck to a degree
We are ants, they are locusts.
The idea that there are people out there who see this video as "controversial" saddens me deeply.
I heard a conversation at a bar with people who were anti-flu and measles vaccination but STILL praised the smallpox vaccine.
It's mainly the sponsor you need to be skeptical about "Open Philanthropy"
The quantity of people wearing face masks in this video was astounding.
The answer to “Is this video controversial?” probably depends on the viewers viewpoint of the recent COVID-19 vaccine programs.
The only counter argument i can see here is that they might be using an extreme situation as advertising for relaxing the regulations on drug safety etc..
Unless you're some sort of anime villain character that thinks that smallpox was needed to contain the population growth, and that killing it doomed the planet or something.
Thanks for linking the video by Rational Animations. I never would have discovered the channel otherwise
I have just been reading a piece on normalcy bias, and I was struck by the closing points of this video. A major driver of the antivaccination movement being so strong these days, is that we don't see the effect of contagious disease on a daily basis, and so lose a sense of what it is we are trying to avoid.
The reason some anti-vaxxers exist is because they don't want to receive the Mark of the Beast as described in The Book of Revelation. Anybody who receives the mark is damned to burn in hell after they die. That mark will be required to participate in the global economy and anybody without the mark will be sought to be killed or starve to death as they cannot purchase things as basic as food. So when vaccine passports became required everybody freaked tf out.
Well put. 100% agreed. I imagine that people with aphantasia are more likely to become anti-vaxxers, though entirely speculative.
Its not that its been forgotten. Its that the trust has been lost between the producers and consumers of so many medicines.
Also some those "antivaxxers" are not against all kinds of vaccines, just the mRNA vaccines.
@@gabor6259 an antivaxxer is an antivaxxer,
one either know what an mRNA vaccine is and how it works or one is against it
Imagine being a literal killing machine and getting defeated by apes with pointy needles 8:37
BLOONS TOWER DEFEN-
@@Hewhak-Ieage-y5c*N O*
@@Hewhak-Ieage-y5cVIRUS TOWE-
@@Hewhak-Ieage-y5cnot apes, old world monkeys
@@Hewhak-Ieage-y5cmy honest reaction🐵✒️🐵✒️🐵✒️🐵✒️🐵✒️🐵✒️🎈🎈✍️🐵✍️🐵✍️🐵✍️🐵✍️🐵✍️🐵🐵✒️🐵✒️🐵✒️🐵✒️🐵✒️🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈
Couple things I've picked up over the years pertinent to this video: the ccr5 delta 32 gene mutation is believed by scientists to have developed in Northern Europeans as a response to this virus or one very similar. The way I remember reading it, there's A cell organelle that protrudes from our cells that HIV, Small Pox, and the Black Plague use to infiltrate our cells. This mutation recesses this organelle, making it much, much more difficult for these viruses to get in. If you have 2 copies of this mutation, you're effectively immune to these viruses. The only HIV patients to be truly cured of HIV did so upon receiving marrow donations from people with the double mutation.
Oh cool, I have paranoid organelles, neat!
@@blunderingfoolu a cute derg lol
@@Ravennevarr I keep getting compliments about the dragon today. :P That coat is one I used to own, back when I got the art commissioned.
@@blunderingfool coats are awesome, I have camel colored great coat myself.
Delta cxcr4 gene also gives immunity to HIV as well 😊
One Bacteria I was curious to see ya'll discuss is Anthrax. I had to take a vaccine for Anthrax a few years ago, but I'm curious to how it works and what makes it dangerous.
Damn, i had no idea it was THAT nasty of a disease and it's fascinating to see how they starter combating the spread of the infection with the variolation!
It was very unsurprising that the last two samples of smallpox were in the laboratories of the US and Russia respectively.
Yes, I thought so too
Of course. Th
Is was during the cold war and they were the two superpowers.
@@bw2082 biological weapons yo
Yeah and even more concerning knowing one of those two might be unhinged enough to reintroduce the disease to an enemy population.
The US has also misplaced some samples of it. One guy left it out in the middle of a lab. I think a janitor found it. I think we also had some grad students find a sample while cleaning out a cooler in their school lab.
"We killed one monster. We can do it again."
I don't know why such a simple statement manages to give me goosebumps, but it does.
They gave you goosebumps once, they can do it again
Made me want to rewatch CGP Greys Fable of the Dragon Tyrant again.
You are goosebumps
They killed one monster, but they can create a new one, maybe even from scratch (pun not intended)... Evolution is blind and still manages to come up with terrifying things. Now imagine you give it the eyes...
@@Gaehhn Respect. Awesome video
0:23 And to thank the cows, we got rid of rinderpest for them.
I began to be so sensitive to those topics, and the way (at the and of the video) you talked of the light of vaccines, that i almost cry every time. The topics like cancer and viruses are very important to me since the death of my uncle (April). I study natural science in university and i want to tank you for all the amazing things you spread on the web. Things that normally i heard At uni.
a truly inspiring tale. If only humanity could come together like this for other causes...
Humanity has so much potential to do incredibly good things. It's just figuring out how to get the will to accomplish such things, and the perspective to view all of humanity as our "us", instead of the tribal "us vs them" attitudes that are still so prevalent.
@@indifferentdrifter506even without trump we were divided.
sorry but the window closed in 2014
i dont see russia working again with us and china seem to turn to be hostile to us, so we stuck in another agressive cold war for next 30 years
@@indifferentdrifter506Biden could've ended war in Ukraine in a matter of months by providing weapons necessary to defeat Russian Army to the UAF (which US have incredibly large amount in storage) but he didn't and hundreds of thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands more will die.
Actually just approving sales of HIMARS to UAF in 2021 would've prevented the War from happening.
Its not just Trump who is made of $h!t, its most of US politicians.
@@indifferentdrifter506 That's a good thing. The weaker the Devil, the more chances are for good.
What unsettles me is that, thus far, smallpox is the _only_ disease that humanity has completely eradicated. This leads me to believe that we do, indeed, have the recourses with which to completely wipe out a fair few illnesses - we just haven't yet.
With so many more people on the planet, and with so many of them rejecting vaccines, it's unlikely that we will ever completely eradicate another pandemic.
*laughs in covid*
me when people refuse to have a needle poke your body to hopefully eradicate a disease
That's cos smallpox only infects humans, so immunizing humans is all that's necessary. A lot of other transmitted diseases are zoonotic and can jump between species, making them harder to eradicate.
A few determined idiots can kill a lot of people
The last part was awesome. Love how Kurzgesagt expresses emotions.
It is quite interesting to see how studies and creations of medicine have changed throughout the years. Great job, Edward Jenner!
Don't forget about Viktor Zhdanov, the Soviet scientist that called on the WHO and the international community to take on smallpox. He also worked to keep science communication open between the Soviet Union and the west through the cold war. The eradication campaign wouldn't have happened without his contributions!
@@MontgomerygolfgatorThat's a fun fact to what I already knew. There was indeed the Cold War and a global movement wouldn't have been possible if there was no one to mediate between the two superpowers. Thanks for the info!
@@Montgomerygolfgatoryup, at that period in time, the West and the Communist Bloc were at a period of relaxed engagement so scientific cooperations were done and is still relevant today, such as the Apollo-Soyuz space project.
It's kinda crazy they didn't mention his name in this video...
@@saebre. That's probably on purpose, as Jenner gets ALL the credit in standard tellings of the vaccine story. Indeed those narrations often don't even mention the prior practice of variolation at all, from which the idea of vaccination arose. It's a very Great Man way of narrating history, and both Kurzgesagt and historians in general try to avoid indulging that practice.
I'm currently studying to become a STEM teacher, and want to use Kurzgesagt videos in my lectures. Your ability to make complex topics accessible to kids is unparalleled!
I honestly never read up on or knew anything about Smallpox. Never knew it was so deadly, and in school I only learned about the Plague. So thanks for this short intro to this nasty one! Learned something new today :)
In a way it's sad we are not this united as a species anymore. Almost like we need a common enemy to have empathy for one another. No common enemy and we turn on ourselves
We do have a common enemy though. Climate change is almost certainly the biggest threat to humanity we've ever faced. Not so much with the unity yet though.
9:14 bro got trolled 💀
lol
Lol
my favorite channel on youtube hands down. every episode is a treat and i'm so glad there are amazing people like you guys out there to spread knowledge in such a fun and artistic way. much love.
A very serene video of such a dark topic.
How much more could you describe a thousand year plague that destroyed millions in a more artistic way then this.
It tells a powerful story of powerless people rising against a great threat & finally overcoming it once & for all
It reminds us that not all the heroes are dead & that they live among us.
(I arrived early.)
0:20 holy cow
Your ability to explain complex scientific processes in simple terms is impressive. Quality content as always.
Agreed
bro you didn't even finish watching the video
Nutshell inspires me.. My parents said if i get 40K followers They'd buy me a professional camera for recording..begging u guys , literally
Begging...
@@namantherockstarNo.
@@namantherockstarlols
Imagine being a species that eradicated one of its biggest killers, only for it to possibly come back because there are too many members of your species who dont believe the records your species has kept.
GOD'S STANDARD FOR HEAVEN IS PERFECTION AND ONLY JESUS (THE SON OF GOD/GOD IN THE FLESH) LIVED THAT PERFECT LIFE! HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE & TOOK THE WRATH OF THE FATHER ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS! GOD IS JUST SO HE MUST PUNISH SIN & HE IS HOLY SO NO SIN CAN ENTER HIS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. IF YOU ARE IN CHRIST ON JUDGEMENT DAY GOD WILL SEE YOU AS HIS PERFECT SON (SINLESS SINCE YOUR SINS ARE COVERED BY JESUS' OFFERING). YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE TO REJECT JESUS' GIFT/SACRIFICE & PAY FOR YOUR OWN SIN WITH DEATH (HELL) BUT THAT SEEMS PRETTY FOOLISH! GOD SEES & HEARS EVERYTHING YOU HAVE SAID & DONE. YOU WONT WIN AN ARGUMENT WITH HIM & YOU CANT DEFEND ANY OF YOUR SINS TO HIM. YOU'RE NOT A GOOD PERSON, I'M NOT A GOOD PERSON... ONLY GOD IS GOOD! WE'RE ALL GUILTY WITHOUT ACCEPTING JESUS' SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS!
MUHAMMAD DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, BUDDHA DIDN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, NO PASTOR/NO PRIEST/NO SAINT/NO ANCESTOR DIED FOR YOUR SINS, MARY DIDN'T, THE POPE DIDN'T EITHER, NO IDOLS OR FALSE gods DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO MUSICIAN OR CELEBRITY DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO INFLUENCER OR TH-cam STAR DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO SCIENTIST OR POLITICIAN DIED FOR YOUR SINS, NO ATHLETE OR ACTOR DIED FOR YOUR SINS! STOP IDOLIZING & WORSHIPING THESE PEOPLE!
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."-John 14:6
"But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."-Matthew 10:33
“For the wages of sin is death (hell), but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”-Romans 6:23
@@JESUSCHRIST-ONLYWAYTOHEAVENok, this is not a video about religion, and you are still praising god since he saved your life, while the smallpox scientists could have been the ones who are the reason why you are born. Please do not insult other religions, but acknowledge them. I do not mean to be rude to you or your religion, but the scientists may have saved your life.
Fortunately those Darwin award recipients mostly are from one country.
It's further evidence that the human mind is incredibly stubborn, selfish, and gullible
no need to imagine, unfortunately. that's the actual world we live in...
It was not the cow per se that gave Jenner the idea. It’s the milkmaid. She had the pox but it doesn’t seem to affect her the way small pox did. It turned out, she got the immunity by being exposed to cowpox from, well, milking the infected cows, hence giving Jenner the idea that they could actually use the virus from cowpox for them to develop immunity against the lethal smallpox.
Correct me if I’m wrong? (I wrote this comment based on my knowledge that I got from nursing school 😅)
Bro, imagine drinking the milk of a ill cow.
Yep you’re 100% correct! Funny enough this man tested the theory on his son, by first exposing him to cowpox, waiting for him to recover and exposed him to smallpox lmao
Correct for the most part. The only thing I would add is that supposedly milkmaids were known for beauty and complexion, which may well have helped inspire the research as to why milkmaids were less vulnerable to the pox.
Of course, smallpox is not the only disease which has those symptoms. Cowpox obviously (which does actually affect humans, though usually from cow to human transmission), chickenpox, and syphilis, the latter of which was known as the Great Pox, and hence smallpox and its variants were distinguished from them. So it might not have been immediately obvious that milkmaids were getting cowpox, and then not getting ill from smallpox, especially to people of the time.
@@KaptainOWexcellent parenting👍
In case anyone's curious, Rabies is #1, and in terms of mortality rate, it's not even close. We've had a rabies vaccine for 100 years. We also have a post-infection protocol (the shot) that now works nearly perfectly. In spite of all of this, my estimate is that since 1924, there have been roughly 1.7 million cases of symptomatic rabies. 19 survived.
Still in total rabies has killed a lot less, in the same amount of time smallpox killed 500 million. But yes by mortality rate rabies wins. Prions have higher ones though, like kuru. Which is a full 100% as of this point and CWD (chronic wasting disease in deers) is also an 100% killer.
Thank you for this lesson in history! May it never be forgotten.
8:50 Privilege is invisible to those who have it. Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
When humans put aside their differences and work together, incredible stuff like this happens.
"... One of two things happen, either your immune system wrestles back control, heavy weapons are dispatched, killing infected cells, cleaning up the thousands of infections one by one, killing variola wherever it can be found, so you can begin to recover. The immune system will forever remember variola, making you immune forever. Or, you die :D"
-Kurzgesagt being Kurzgesagt
Literally tearing up at 8:16. "Variola, the scourge of humanity, was dead."
Also, today I learned that today is the anniversary of the official eradication date of smallpox.
Okay so I’m not the only one tearing up at the fact that even though humanity is so fucked up we still managed to work together towards a common goal and eradicate this horrible virus
Now we are the virus!
I become teary when I think of how settlers deliberately infected Native Americans with smallpox in order to steal their land.
Thanks, I was looking for others also crying from this video!
@@pthesmith lmao
This is one of my favorite channels! Thank you for keeping the intro. Many channels are removing them to shorten the length of videos. Always love your videos!
That's why small pox was so scary. No one notices it's infection until it suddenly takes over, killing you in less than a day. There was a common saying to describe it's rapid effect: Merry at breakfast; dead by noon.
Not all kind were that fast but malignant and hemorrhagic were wicked fast
The ilustrations and machines are awesome
A truly classic Kurzgesagt episode. Your depiction of the way smallpox kills the human body was existential dread inducing. Bravo!
Are those cell posters available digitally?
We talk a lot about how we humans are a violent species, because we make wars and bombs, but we don't spend nearly enough time talking about how as a species we've also come together to achieve incredible things like this.
well I mean to be fair, to the virus this is basically a nuclear weapon:) I mean we eradicated an entire species (if you consider viruses alive, an ongoing debate)
Doesnt happended that often.
We've been getting less violent over time.
@@rainerwinggler6488It does happen all the time on a smaller scale
negativity bias is one hell of drug
I want a video on prion diseases next! I think that would be pretty cool.
Mmmmm, long pork. Maddeningly tasty.
0:27 notice how the monkey is holding the virus, nice detail :)
“The simple things in life are often the moo-st beautiful."
- A wise cow.
Truer words have not been moo-ed.. 😄
- Master Cowgway
Shoutout to the Monkey at 0:27 eating the virus, how kind
Yea! If you look in a lot of their videos the monkey is eating different things 😅
@@Lensandwanderit more like they smelling random things
Today there's monkey smallpox
This didn't age well
Monkey pox coming in
The girl at 8:25 having PTSD was brilliant thanks for the laugh and wake up call!
It absolutely amazes me how us humans are able to do so much when United. Humanity may not be the best but it's always amazing to watch us progress