Firsts: Innoculation

It is a contagious, systemic viral disease, and it had plagued humans from ancient times.  Evidence of it has even turned up on an excavated Egyptian mummy from the twentieth dynasty (around 1,100 B.C.E.).  But it was the Chinese who first discovered a way to protect people from the ravages of smallpox and they did so through a treatment that was a complete breakthrough—inoculation.  This essential medical process eventually spread to Europe and ultimately led to the development of modern immunology.

In the southwest corner of the Chinese province of Szechuan there sits a famous mountain named O-Mei Shan ("shan" means "mountain" in Chinese).  This mountain is legendary for the Buddhist and Taoist sages and hermits who have lived and practiced amidst its serene beauty throughout the ages.  Taoist adepts living on O-Mei Shan had secret knowledge of variolation (inoculation with smallpox) by the tenth century C.E.  How old the technique really is will most likely remain a mystery.  How it came to be widely known about and used is, however, an interesting story. 

The eldest son of Prime Minister Wang Tan (957–1017 C.E.) died of smallpox.  Determined to prevent the rest of his family from contracting and expiring from this disease, Wang Tan sent out a call throughout the empire for the best physicians and highest-level sages to come to the capital to find a remedy.  Ancient accounts vary in the precise description of the actual person, but apparently a Taoist sage from O-Mei Shan arrived, bringing the technique of inoculation.  The immense value and significance of this discovery was instantly appreciated and it spread throughout the region, and the rest, as they say, is history.