Smallpox Eradication Disease

Due to the native’s total isolation from the rest of the civilized world, they had been prevented from developing immunities against many devastating diseases. These diseases were carried into the country unaware by the conquistadors from Europe and Africa. For example, smallpox reached Espanola by 1518 and was carried to New Spain in 1520. It then moved through Central America and entered Peru by 1527. Wherever the disease passed, it left a detrimental death toll in its wake. There are many accounts of villages that lost half or more of their population, some even lost as high as 90% of their population. Many more disease continued to slowly decimate the natives, such as measles typhus, influenza, yellow fever, malaria diphtheria and the bubonic plague. Within the next 100 year of disease, the native’s population became less than 10% what it was in the

The book is primarily an account of the Smallpox Eradication Program (1967–80), the ongoing perception by the U.S. government that smallpox is still a potential bioterrorism agent, and the controversy over whether or not the remaining samples of smallpox virus in Atlanta and Moscow (the “demon” in the freezer) should be finally destroyed.

Smallpox blankets were intentionally used to infect Native Americans during the French and Indian war. These blankets were given to them from the British as a way to get rid of them, so they can win the war and eventually get more land. By giving the infected blankets to the Natives they accomplished their goal. There is a significant amount of evidence that proves this such as letters, records from the smallpox hospital, documents from William Trent during the time of giving the blankets, and practice of inoculation. Biological warfare was used against the Natives according to the letters from Jeffery Amherst to Colonel Henry Bouquet suggesting the use of smallpox to narrow down the native population.

Smallpox is an extremely deadly disease which, in one point in time, was the most feared disease on the planet. In the book Pox Americana, Elizabeth A. Fenn writes about the encounter with the deadly disease in the 1770's to the 1780's. Her book was first published in 2001 in New York City, where she originally wrote it. Her book contains just under 400 words that explain the disease, some of the first encounters with it, who and where it affected people, and how they got the epidemic under control. Pox Americana is a very informative book that teaches the reader various things.

The smallpox epidemic that was introduced into the Americas by the European travelers was devastating, especially to the natives. Killing off 80-90% of native populations in just the first 150 years following 1492. [INSERT DIRECT SOURCE. FIND THE WEBSITE LINK, GO TO BIBME.COM AND SOURCE THIS INFO.] One of the reasons this disease was so devastating was due to the regrettable fact that the

Smallpox is a virus that was first founded in ancient times. The virus?s proper name is Variola rex, and it has various different forms as well as various symptoms. Among these forms are typical smallpox, hemorrhagic smallpox, and malignant smallpox, all of which usually always cause death in their victims. Some of the typical symptoms of smallpox include red vesicles and pustules all over, bleeding from all orifices of the body, swelling in the face, throat, and eyes, difficulty eating and swallowing, delirium, malaise, deterioration of the bone marrow, lymph nodes and mucus membranes of the body, and a multitude of other secondary symptoms. Smallpox is typically diagnosed by ruling out the possibility of other

The history of the United States began with Virginia and Massachusetts; their histories begin with epidemics of unidentified diseases. Smallpox was the worst and the most amusing diseases that were out. Smallpox were just killing down all the Native Americans, they didn’t know what to do with it all. The epidemic destroyed half of the Cherokee in 1738, in 1759 almost half of the Catawba’s, in the first years of the next century two-thirds of the Omaha’s and perhaps half of the population between the Missouri River and New Mexico.

During the Revolutionary War, one of the main fears were not the enemies bullets, but fear of disease. One of the major viruses that people had to fear was smallpox. The continental army had more to fear than the British in the fact that British had been immunized, and the continental army had not. This was only the beginning of the problems from the smallpox epidemic that broke out in America.

Despite the disappearance of the plague, smallpox still ran rampant throughout the world. The terrible disease continued to kill millions of Europeans every year. An inoculation created in the early 1700s was a somewhat successful solution and thousands of Europeans underwent the operation to engraft their skin with smallpox (Doc 2). However, new, more efficient solution came in the form of Edward Jenner, who created the first smallpox vaccine by collecting cowpox from an infected person and inserting it into another individual’s arm (Doc 6). Edward Jenner’s new vaccine was virtually harmless and was the most efficient vaccination to date. The smallpox vaccine eradicated the disease in Europe and eventually, the entire world. Smallpox was the last great disease that Europeans faced and its elimination allowed Europe’s population to grow and

Smallpox is a disease caused by a poxvirus that is caught from person to person that causes high fever, and rash, that can kill about 1/3 of those who caught the disease. Smallpox (also called variola) is the only disease that has been fully cured. Smallpox is also almost one of the most scary deaths ever. Not one documented naturally occurring case of this very infectious, deadly disease hasn't occurred since 1977. (An unvaccinated hospital cook in Somalia was the last person to naturally contract smallpox.) The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared smallpox eradicated in

When the Europeans had their first contact to the New World, it had a great impact on the spread of diseases that would wiped more than eighty to ninety percent of indigenous population. Neither Europeans nor Native Americans had medicine to fight the diseases. But Europeans had developed throughout the year’s immunities to fight diseases back in their homeland, so they were in a big advantage over the scarce resource that the Native Americans had. One of the main disease that killed millions of indigenous groups was called smallpox. Europeans had been exposed to many diseases throughout their history, in the Old World it was common for children at a young age to be infected with smallpox. So with advanced treatments with smallpox in the Old World, they had a different perspective on how to control these type of diseases. Many indigenous groups had not developed an immunities to fight smallpox. Reference to the book were it mentions that smallpox specifically means not the disease but the pimpled, pustules appearance which is the most obvious symptom of the disease (Crosby, p 43). As a result, many indigenous groups needed to find refuge due to the high percentage of deaths caused by European conquest and

In a letter to Patrick Henry in 1777, George Washington wrote of Small Pox “I know that it is more destructive to an army in the natural way than the sword”. At times the most minute things have the most immense impact on our lives, such was the smallpox Epidemic of 1775. It is not known how or where the outbreak began, but by 1775 it was raging through Boston. The devastation of Smallpox during 1775 played a key role in the outcome of the revolutionary war and in shaping modern medicine and how we handle diseases. But these medical advances didn't come without terrible sacrifice. Nearly 30% of people living in the Americas or 130,658 would succumb to smallpox. The death rate of Variola Major, which is the common form

Infectious epidemics and pandemics have happened all through mankind's history. “They remain the prime cause of death worldwide and will not be conquered during our lifetimes.” The flu of 1918 was one of the deadliest epidemics in history. “It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic.” No one knew how the virus spread, there were no antibiotics to fight it, and no flu shots to prevent it. In the final year of World War I, it struck terror in the hearts of people all across Europe and left more death in its wake than the combined military actions of the combatants. “It killed more Americans in a few months than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the

This article focused on depopulation via smallpox. “Within just a few generations, the continents of the Americas were virtually emptied of their native inhabitants – some academics estimate that approximately 20 million people may have died in the years following the European invasion – up to 95% of the population of the Americas.” The article goes on to describe the transmission process of smallpox, incubation period, and symptoms of the disease. It then discusses the fact that diseases such as smallpox, influenza and measles were a product of the European society, specifically livestock farming and close interaction with domesticated livestock. Though smallpox outbreaks would occur in Europe, killing major portions of the population, some would survive and build immunities which they genetically passed to the next generations. Because the Native Americans had no exposure to smallpox and no genetic immunities, exposure to this virus was deadly all across the continent. “More victims of colonization were killed by Eurasian germs, than by either the gun or the sword, making germs the deadliest agent of conquest.”

Imagine a quick spreading rash throughout the entire body, leaving not a single space behind; every opening and crevice in your body, including your mouth and eyes covered in painful bumps accompanied by high fever and severe body aches. Flat red spots transforming into fluid-filled lesions and soon oozing out yellow pus, evidently emitting a pungent odor to anyone who dared get close. The live virus present in the darkening crusty scabs that would soon fall off only to leave behind a deep pitted scarred filled complexion on anyone who was fortunate enough to survive. These scars would be forever remembered as the hallmark for the smallpox epidemic which tormented the world for over 3,000 years. (Riedel “Deadly Diseases”).