•  26
    [The vaccine metaphor. From inoculation to vaccination]
    History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 14 (2): 271-297. 1991.
    The episodes of cowpox inoculation (1798) and rabies preventive treatment (1885) are celebrated as the landmark of modern medicine. Paradoxically, these two advances have been accomplished without any theoretical breakthrough in the understanding of immunity. Going further, they were made possible by a long past of empirical procedures among which smallpox inoculation played an outstanding role. The paper explores the paradox of 'Immunization without Immunology' and Pasteur's reconstruction of t…Read more
  •  47
    Historical development of vaccines. Introduction: Hazards and rationality in the vaccinal approach
    History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 17 (1): 5-29. 1994.
    The aim of this paper is to introduce the one hundred years of vaccination that has passed since Louis Pasteur first coined this generic term. According to the late Jonas Salk, vaccinology is a science encompassing all aspects of vaccine from its conception in the laboratory to its production by companies and its application and distribution in the field. In this historical survey I explore how vaccination never consisted of a simple and uniform application of a rational model, but rather diverg…Read more