History of Disease

Historical Smallpox Control Strategies (22:V2:5-9)

Since smallpox’s history is almost as long as our own, mankind had tried numerous ways of minimizing its devastating effects. Smallpox hospitals were established in Japan in 982 AD. During the 10th Century in China and India, Variolation with smallpox virus was practiced to try and induce milder disease leading to lifelong immunity. Variolation is a process by which pus from a smallpox patient is collected and used for inoculating health people who have not had the disease.

“ Several observations led to the use of variolation to try and prevent smallpox and control the spread of disease. First, persons skin pock-marks, evidence of previous smallpox disease, did not come down with the disease again. And second, persons inoculated through skin with smallpox material usually had a milder form of the illness compared to those who were infected naturally. This was not an ideal control strategy as this still had a case fatality rate of 2% and people infected by this method could transmit the disease to others.” (22:V2:5)

In America, quarantine for smallpox patients was in practice in the 1650s. Home isolation of smallpox patients was established in Virginia in 1667. Inoculation using variolation and isolation continued until Edward Jenner’s discovery of cowpox providing immunity to smallpox.

 
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