Cowpox in Ayurveda: unacknowledged indian intellectual property

jan 18th, 2012 CE

this was indeed a brilliant insight which is falsely attributed to some brit named jenner. 

it is unfair to steal it and then give no credit to the inventor at all. this, unfortunately, has been the case with many indian inventions that the whites have generously attributed to the greeks or chinese or somebody. that is, anybody but indians. 

retroactive recompense, eh, pharma companies? any lawyers want to pursue this pro bono with the World Intellectual Property Organization?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Arvind Kumar

Not only is the use of cowpox virus as a vaccine mentioned in texts on Ayurveda, but it was also acknowledged in Western journals. Two references follow.

http://books.google.com/books?id=D_ooAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA243

Proceedings of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Volume 37

 By American Veterinary Medical Association

Session of 1900

Centuries ago in India inoculation to prevent smallpox with cowpox virus was practiced by the Hindoos and an accurate description of the procedure is given in an ancient Hindoo medical work.*

...

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*"Take the liquid of the pustules of the cow's teat, or from the area of a human being between the shoulder and the elbow; place it upon the point of a lancet and introduce it in the area at the same place, mixing the fluid with the blood; the fever of variola will be produced. This disease will be mild like the animal from which it is derived. It need not cause fear and requires no remedies the patient may be given the food he desires." -- Sacteya Grautham (a Hindoo Book of Medicine).

http://books.google.com/books?id=X4BYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA133

The American practitioner, Volumes 13-14

1892

Along with certain collateral information that we are glad the author has been tempted to give, is the information that vaccination was as well understood by leading Hindoo physicians, probably three thousand years before Christ, as it is to day among us. In a medical work called Sacteya Grantham occurs this remarkable passage: "Take the liquid of the pustules of the cow's teat or from the arm of a human being, between the shoulder and the elbow, place upon the point of a lancet and introduce it the arm at the same place, mixing the with the blood, the fever of variola will be produced. The disease will be mild, as it is in animal from which it is derived. The is perfect when it is of good color, filled with clear liquid, and surrounded by a red circle "