In 1796, the English medical doctor and scientist Edward Edward Jenner, discovered the necessary components

and theories behind and developed a version of a smallpox vaccine, which was a revolutionary

concept at the time, predicated on old folk knowledge, and an observation that milkmaids who came down with a weaker

version of the disease called cowpox would tend not to catch the more serious and at times

quite deadly smallpox. He subsequently formalized the process of exposing patients to dead or weakened versions of the disease,

which gave their immune systems a chance to become familiar with it and build up immune defenses

that then, when exposed to a full dose of smallpox later, would be primed to protect the owners of those

immune systems from the worst effects of the disease. This is the same general concept that

many modern vaccines utilize. And again, at the time, it was quite an important innovation, but also an

innovation that was almost immediately exploited by criminals hoping to take advantage of the

popularity of this vaccine. Existing snake oil salesmen pivoted their product promises to claim that their miracle oils cured and

protected users from smallpox as well. But new fraudsters also emerged, claiming to provide

their customers with legit, weakened smallpox components, when in reality they were providing something else entirely.

Usually something harmless, but something that would not offer the promised and desired protections,

which could then later lead to harm because those receiving these fake treatments would think they were protected

and behave accordingly. The importance of this vaccine in the still new United States was paramount,

as like most other places on the planet at that point in time, they were suffering through

a smallpox pandemic that killed a whole lot of people, and which left those who survived,

seriously scarred, and at times permanently injured or handicapped.

And being a new nation, the government could not afford to be hobbled while the rest of the world

moved forward benefiting from this vaccine.

This need to keep up led to the Vaccine Act of 1813, the first ever United States federal law

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