18. Reading. The invention of vaccines

Read the text about a famous scientist and his invention and choose the correct answers to the questions.

 

 

 

 

  

Before the end of the \(18\)th century, a dangerous disease called 'smallpox' was killing people all over the world. Nobody had any medicines against it. In some areas, more than \(10\) \(\%\) of citizens died of that terrible disease. But later, in \(1796\), an experiment changed the situation. Edward Jenner, an English doctor developed an idea of how to protect people from smallpox.

 

Edward Jenner lived and worked as a doctor in the country. One day a girl who worked with cows came to him. She had red spots on her hands. Doctor Jenner understood that it was cowpox. The girl said one of her cows had cowpox. It is a disease similar to smallpox. But it is not so dangerous. People with cowpox usually have only a few red spots on their hands and feel sick for a short time.

 

Doctor Jenner heard many people in his village say: people who had cowpox before are now immune to the smallpox. He decided to check this idea. He took some liquid from the girl's infected skin. He found a boy who had never had cowpox or smallpox. He infected the boy with the liquid. The boy got sick from the girl's cowpox. So Doctor Jenner made a discovery that a person could get cowpox from another person.

 

After that he needed to know if the boy got immune to smallpox. The doctor injected the smallpox virus into the boy. He was so happy, because the boy didn't get ill with that disease! He tried to inject him a few more times, but the boy remained healthy. This way Doctor Jenner introduced the first vaccine. His invention is very important for all people in the world, as vaccines protect them from serious diseases and save their lives!

 

1) Where was smallpox common before the end of the \(18\)th century?

 

 

2) What idea did Doctor Jenner want to check?