Fun Facts about a Deadly Disease
By studying Egyptian Mummies, scientists discovered that people suffered with smallpox at least as far back as 1350 BCE! The past two to three years we’ve dealt with Covid almost seems puny in comparison. Diseases that have been around for as long as smallpox have the advantage of producing scores of research data and also seeing how disease management has changed over time.
Smallpox killed hundreds of millions of people over the millennia. It was highly infectious, utterly indiscriminate. [Forgive me, but I told you in the title of this article we would have some fun… look for the lame dad joke tied to the word utterly in the next paragraphs.] Smallpox infected the rich, the poor, the young, and the old. It crossed every boundary. It was found on every inhabited continent. Smallpox could kill or maim and can only be described as gruesome. High fever, vomiting, mouth sores, and if that isn’t bad enough, it manifested itself as fluid filled lesions over the whole body. One in three died. Death took only two weeks. If you were lucky enough to survive, you might have lifelong ailments like blindness or infertility. Thankfully, Mozart and Abraham Lincoln survived their infections.
It is counter intuitive that there is no cure, but it was declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980. HOW COULD IT BE ERADICATED without a CURE?
Maybe you have guessed. After more than 2,000 years of vaccine development, a vaccine did the trick. Smallpox is the only disease in the history of the world to be completely eradicated.
The very first form of vaccination was used to fight Smallpox in 200 BCE. It is called variolation and involved introducing small amounts of fluid from the lesion to a healthy individual. It must have been a crap shoot as to whether you only got a mild case of smallpox. As with the covid vaccine, antibodies were created to fight off the virus.
There are written accounts from China dating to the 1500s where scabs/lesions were collected, dried, ground, placed in a pipe and the powder was blown into the nostril of the patient. I really wish I had read about this before I experienced the covid test swab!
In 1721 Lady Montagu observed inoculation, very similar to today’s methods, in the Ottoman Empire. About the same time, in the American colonies, Cotton Mather discovered his slaves using a similar inoculation technique. Apparently, this capability was brought from Africa.
In 1796, the world’s very first vaccine was demonstrated using a less deadly pox called cowpox. Sarah Nelmes, a cowpox infected milkmaid who was daily in contact with udders, was used as a source for the virus. The virus was injected into the 8-year old James Phipps. James hoped, reacted mildly to the injection. Two months later, James was injected with smallpox and did not get infected. Great news, but think about it; they actually used a child as a petri dish!
After a couple thousand years of torment from the virus, you would think people would universally rally around the science. Not so. When news of the vaccine was made public, rumors spread that if you accepted the injection, you would turn into a cow. How gullible can people be? I mean really! Wait…. In 2022 there were conspiracy theories that the Covid vaccine contained a tracking device. Or that you will become infertile. Or that your DNA will be changed. Ok, that part isn’t at all funny.
The eradication program in the US cost approximately $300 million. It has been estimated that the US recoups this investment every 26 days not spending money on administering vaccinations or treating patients.
A number of countries were involved in funding and developing this solution. This may be surprising based on current geopolitics, but Russia and the United States worked closely with other countries to develop the vaccine. Sweden deserves a special spotlight for their investments in the fight to defeat smallpox. They continue to be on the forefront as they have a stockpile of vaccines just in case smallpox resurfaces.
This story is proof that if you don’t study history, you are bound to repeat avoidable mistakes. I think this story might have helped inoculate the public against Covid and also the inexplicable conspiracy theories circulating around the current worldwide scourge.
