Starting in the 18th century, people began inoculating themselves in large numbers. You'd do this with pus from a victim who had a mild case of it.

The Wikipedia article on variolation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation) is pretty interesting. Edward Jenner's development of Smallpox vaccination seemed much less revolutionary to me once I learned about Smallpox inoculation/variolation.

When you dig into the history of almost anything, you find a backstory that is missing from the popular story. To me, that makes it more interesting, but I'm a nerdy want-to-kknow-how-it-really-works guy.

Variolation was still risky with a significant risk of contracting the disease and thus death or even starting a new outbreak. So, the vaccine was still a rediculusly huge step forward.

Variolation was still risky with a ~1% risk of death and a significant chance of starting a new outbreak. So, the vaccine was still a rediculusly huge step forward.

So basically Variolation was MySpace, and Vaccination was Facebook?

Took an existing idea, cranked it up a notch, and sold it to the masses?