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In one of the only known photos of Abraham Lincoln taken on the day of the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln can be seen seated, hatless, just below and to the right of the flag. Lincoln began developing symptoms of smallpox on the train home to Washington, DC.
Presidential Pox, 1863
Researchers continue to debate whether US President Abraham Lincoln was coming down with smallpox as he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address, and if he had been immunized.
Presidential Pox, 1863
Presidential Pox, 1863

Researchers continue to debate whether US President Abraham Lincoln was coming down with smallpox as he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address, and if he had been immunized.

Researchers continue to debate whether US President Abraham Lincoln was coming down with smallpox as he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address, and if he had been immunized.

history, immunology

animal vaccinations being given at the Imperial Academy of Medicine in Paris
Bovine Inoculations, circa 1870s
Christopher DeCou | Jun 1, 2019 | 3 min read
Lymph from cattle proved more effective at inducing immunity to smallpox than the older, person-to-person method.
Self-Experimentation Led to the Discovery of IgE
Andrea Anderson | Jun 1, 2017 | 3 min read
In the 1960s, immunologists took matters into their own hands—and under their own skin—to characterize an immunoglobulin involved in allergies.
Baruj Benacerraf Dies
Edyta Zielinska | Aug 3, 2011 | 3 min read
The Nobel Prize winner who discovered the gene that encodes the major histocompatibility complex passes away at age 90.
A Scar Nobly Got
Michael Willrich | Jul 1, 2011 | 3 min read
The story of the US government’s efforts to stamp out smallpox in the early 20th century offers insights into the science and practice of mass vaccination.
Book excerpt from Pox: An American History
Michael Willrich | Jun 30, 2011 | 4 min read
In Chapter 5, "The Stable and the Laboratory," author Michael Willrich explores the burgeoning vaccine manufacture industry that ramped up to combat smallpox epidemics in turn-of-the-twentieth-century American cities.
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