Smallpox was a disease that devasted cultures for years before scientists eventually announced it eliminated in 1980. The first traces of smallpox date back to the Plague of Athens, and it caused its first epidemic at the end of the 12th century. The DNA virus was likely carried from domesticated animals in early agricultural settlements in countries such as China and Egypt and was first treated by using methods such as bloodletting, leeches, laxatives, and heat or cold therapy. A Hindu goddesss was worshipped to avoid the spread of the disease and the Chinese used sufflation- a method to transfer smallpox flakes from the infected to non-infected citizens. Moslem’s used the first attempt at variolation by using the fluids from smallpox pustules to inoculate the rest of the population. These practices of “planting the flowers” or “engrafting” became the basis of what scientists used to inoculate populations across the world.
Lady Mary Montague was one of the first to use variolation in a wide setting and urged countries and scientists to adopt the method. She observed first-hand in Turkish bath houses the effect that inoculating a population can have an worked earnestly to mass-produce this idea. Lady Montague used her two children as participants in the first experiments in London in 1721- her son was engrafted, and her daughter inoculated. These not only saved her children but motivated the world to experiment with this “new” technology. In 1789, surgeon Edward Jenner used stories of milkmaids who were resistant to the smallpox inoculation and inoculated his son with the swinepox. His son did not respond to the inoculation, encouraging Jenner to inoculate people who he considered “smallpox virgins” with cowpox, then inoculate them with smallpox. Subjects showed few symptoms and recovered within two weeks. This method was used for years until Jenner developed a vaccine in 1796. At this point, the vaccine raised speculation and concerns from the religious, social, and the scientific communities. Concerns did not end until vaccines became more reliable and less dangerous in the late 1800s. From the 1800s to the mid-1900s, smallpox remained rampant and dangerous. Vaccines reduced cases but epidemics continued to rise until the last case of variola major in 1975 was terminated. In 1976 a variola minor case was also cleared. Four years later in 1980, after a war with smallpox of over 300 years, smallpox was officially announced as eradicated.
Hinks, ET. “Smallpox- The Speckled Monster.” PowerPoint (2020).