Vaccination through time: from the first smallpox vaccine to current vaccination campaigns against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The systematic study of the evolution of the concept of vaccination constitutes a fascinating journey through time and the scientific development of effective and safe vaccines against infectious diseases is one of the greatest achievements in the history of medicine. In the western world vaccination dates back to the eighteenth century, a period in which smallpox was a diffused and often lethal disorder, and in many countries attempts at the prevention of such a medical and social threat were conducted. The English surgeon Edward Jenner (1749-1823) is commonly considered the discoverer of the vaccination for smallpox. Moving from remote history to recent periods, the ongoing 2019-2021 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has posed a tremendous challenge to the health systems and consequently to entire society of the countries involved. It has triggered all over the world the rapid development of several effective vaccines, never before prepared in such a brief span of time. It must be acknowledged that modern vaccinology as a science stands at the crossroads of multiple medical specialities and scientific disciplines, being in particular debtor to health care branches born and developed between the end of the nineteenth century (infectivology) and the beginning of the twentieth (immunology). In turn, twentieth century explosive progress in the field of vaccination has triggered the development of other important medical areas, from immunopathology to infectious diseases therapy, and from prevention to anti-cancer treatment. Nowadays, effective and diffused control of infectious diseases cannot do without  the presence of vaccines, as the COVID-19 pandemic has once again demonstrated, and the role of well structured vaccine programs and of capillary and systematic vaccine campaigns has become central not only for the health but also for the existence itself of entire populations all over the world.

Protective face masks through centuries, from XVII century plague doctors to current health care professionals managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

The adoption of items similar to face masks by human beings dates back to the remote past. With specific regard to the use of face protections for medical purposes, from the beginning of the XVII century onwards in Europe physicians in charge of curing patients with plague wore a complicated, and subsequently typical, costume. The face mask included eye sockets of glass and leather headdresses with long, pointed beaks. These beaks were filled with scented spices, aromatic substances and perfumes to filter out the plague and to mask "bad air", which was considered to be the vehicle of the disease. In the XVIII and XIX centuries a number of advances regarding personal protection devices in health care were achieved. In the course of the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish flu), health care professionals began to use face masks in a routine way to protect themselves and their patients. From the sixties (XX century) onwards, the explosion of health care technology has led to a continuous refinement in the study of individual protection devices, also because, even in the presence of an increasing number of powerful antimicrobial agents, infectious diseases have remained dominant during these last decades. It is not by chance, therefore, that one of the consequences of the 2020 ongoing COVID-19 pandemic should be the fact that face masks have become essential again both inside and outside health care environments. Even if more than a century has passed from Fluegge's historical definition of bacteria-laden droplets, the role of certain medical-preventive achievements of the past, including the paradigmatic model of protective face masks, continues to remain pivotal in this third millennium.

Historical and methodological highlights of quarantine measures: from ancient plague epidemics to current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

The ongoing 2020 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is an enormous challenge for the health systems and the entire societies of the countries involved. Since at present the outbreak continues to evolve (April 2020), the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it a public health emergency of international concern, specifying that public health interventions aimed at the prevention of the further spread of this disease include quarantine. Quarantine, that may be defined as a restraint on the activities of people or on the traffic of goods, targeted to the prevention of the diffusion of communicable pathologies, is a health concept profoundly rooted in the history of mankind. The lessons of the past are always pertinent for the present and for the future, in particular from a public health standpoint. One of the most relevant of them is connected with previous influenza pandemics, similar to the current COVID-19 2019/2020 pandemic, and it indicates that it is practically impossible, even in recent times, to contain the infection in the geographic area where it has risen and to prevent its trans-national disseminated spread. With specific reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, health authorities still adopt "classical" preventive interventions, namely workplace social distancing measures and quarantine, to reduce the transmission of the disease. Only the future will testify the precise overall effectiveness of preventive public health measures in containing the impact of the present coronavirus pandemic. However, what in this epidemiological scenario is already known, is that the multi-century international health value of quarantine remains essential and unavoidable.