| » | A “plague of boils” in Egypt around 1500
B.C, affected the Pharaoh’s cattle. We now know these ‘boils’ are
symptomatic of anthrax
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| » | Anthrax was blamed for livestock losses in the 1600s and 1700s. There are some accounts of human cases from around those
times.
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| » | Anthrax disease was first named in the 1800s after a
scientist, Barthelemy, was able to infect healthy animals by performing
experiments with infected blood.
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In the
early-1800s, a human case in Kentucky was reported of a man who contracted
the disease after having been in contact with infected livestock. Human
cases of cutaneous anthrax
are also reported in England. The disease is known as “ragpicker’s
disease” or “woolsorter’s
disease because it only affects workers in those trades.
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| » | In the mid-1800s anthrax was first viewed under a microscope.
About 20 years later, in 1877, a scientist named Robert Koch was able
to link infection with the bacteria with the disease.
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| » | Around this same time, the famous French scientist Louis
Pasteur was prompted to research the disease by a devastating outbreak
in sheep herds. He was the first researcher to begin developing a vaccine.
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| » | Another lesser-known scientist, W.S. Greenfield, does
similar research in using cultures grown at high temperature to produce
immunity. This actually came before Pasteur’s work, but since
Greenfield was not as well known, Pasteur got most of the credit.
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In 1915 German agents in the United
States injected horses, mules and cattle with anthrax on their way
to European war
allies during WWI. This is the first recorded use of anthrax as a
weapon.
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| » | In 1937 Japan began a biological warfare program in
Manchuria, including tests involving anthrax.
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| » | In 1939, an animal vaccine that used live spores was
developed by Max Sterne at the Veterinary Research Institute in South
Africa. This vaccine for livestock is still in use today.
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| » | The
United States began developing anthrax as a biological weapon in 1943.
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| » | In 1954, scientist at Fort Detrick began developing
a vaccine using strains of anthrax that were inactivated. This was
an improvement on the existing livestock vaccine and was the predecessor
of the human vaccine that is in use today.
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| » | From 1955 to 1959 a clinical
trial was conducted with
1,249 participants to test the effects of the anthrax vaccine in humans.
There were very few side effects and those side effects that were reported
were mild, such as swelling at the site of injection.
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| » | The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first formally
approved a purer, more potent anthrax vaccine for use in humans in
1970. |