[Vaccines, the modern state and societies]

The vaccines are regarded as a major contribution to the retreat of the infectious diseases at the XX th century: they allowed a demographic rise without precedent in the world, even if there is still an important shift between the countries. A watershed is in the years 1950, with the beginning of the production of vaccines on cellular cultures and the first clinical trials concerning millions of people. It marks the beginning of the diversification of the vaccines and their production with an industrial scale, which makes it possible to consider new strategies and give precise contents to the dreams of eradication which had been expressed as of the Pasteurian time.