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Smallpox was a dangerous disease caused by the variola major virus. The most common type of smallpox, ordinary, historically has devastated populations with a 30% death rate. The smallpox virus is transmittable through bodily fluids and materials contaminated with infected materials.
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. [7] [11] The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980, [10] making smallpox the only human disease to have been eradicated to date.
The smallpox vaccine is used to prevent smallpox infection caused by the variola virus. [10] It is the first vaccine to have been developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox virus.
Smallpox infections spiked in the 1780s and persisted up to the 1837 epidemic. In what is now Canada, the fur trade strengthened communities such as the Mushego Cree , Anishinaabe , and Ottawa . In the United States, the Mandan tribe had previously experienced a major smallpox epidemic in 1780–1781, which severely reduced their numbers to ...
Smallpox has had a major impact on world history, not least because indigenous populations of regions where smallpox was non-native, such as the Americas and Australia, were rapidly and greatly reduced by smallpox (along with other introduced diseases) during periods of initial foreign contact, which helped pave the way for conquest and ...
Boston's last smallpox outbreak had been in 1703, and a new generation of non-immune children and young adults was vulnerable. By June the town was faced with a major public health crisis and the religious public became increasingly worried that they were the subjects of divine punishment. [10]
A particularly virulent sequence of smallpox outbreaks took place in Boston, Massachusetts. most severe epidemic occurred. The entire population fled the city, bringing the virus to the rest of the Thirteen Colonies. [18] Colonists tried to prevent the spread of smallpox by isolation and inoculation. Inoculation caused a mild form of the ...
According to a historical account in 1884 of the 1721 smallpox outbreak, more than one sixth of people would die from smallpox naturally if not treated by inoculation. Dr. Boylston was threatened to be hanged by townsfolk because they believed that the smallpox disease was an act of God and the doctor should not interfere.