About immunisation > History

• Introduction
• Timeline
• Treating smallpox in China
• Variolation comes to Europe
• From variolation to vaccination
• The backlash against vaccination
• Pasteur's revolution
• Immunisation spreads across the globe
• The 20th century - eliminating disease
• HPV scientist awarded Nobel Prize

Introduction

Long before anyone had heard of bacteria and viruses, it had been noticed people who had survived certain diseases did not catch them again.

As far back as 429 BC, the historian Thucydides (right) observed that those who survived the smallpox plaguein Athens did not become re-infected with the disease.