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Small Pox back in the day  

post #1 of 8
9/1/08 at 1:26pm
Thread Starter 
We were watching the "John Adams" series and in one scene they "inoculate" for small pox. It was so gross.

How exactly was this supposed to work to keep people from not getting small pox? I can't imagine how much more damage this did than if they had left things alone.
post #2 of 8
9/1/08 at 1:28pm
People who got the (relitivly harmless) cowpox became immune to the (much more dangerous) smallpox also, so they would purposly give people cowpox so they wouldn't get smallpox.
post #3 of 8
9/1/08 at 1:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RachelEve14 View Post
People who got the (relitivly harmless) cowpox became immune to the (much more dangerous) smallpox also, so they would purposly give people cowpox so they wouldn't get smallpox.

Oh no, this wasn't cowpox. This was real in the flesh smallpox. The guy with smallpox was dieing and they had him in a wheelbarrow...half alive really. The "Dr." took a knife and cut off some of the actual pox blisters from the dieing man. The he smooshed it up with his knife on a plate. He carried it into the house and proceeded to innoculate the mother and all her kids. By this I mean he took a knife and cut a slit in their arm, took what looked like a sharp end of a quill, scooped up some of the pox goop from the plate and inserted it into the slit under the skin. Um, yeah. How was this smart?
post #4 of 8
9/1/08 at 2:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kleine Hexe View Post
Oh no, this wasn't cowpox. This was real in the flesh smallpox. The guy with smallpox was dieing and they had him in a wheelbarrow...half alive really. The "Dr." took a knife and cut off some of the actual pox blisters from the dieing man. The he smooshed it up with his knife on a plate. He carried it into the house and proceeded to innoculate the mother and all her kids. By this I mean he took a knife and cut a slit in their arm, took what looked like a sharp end of a quill, scooped up some of the pox goop from the plate and inserted it into the slit under the skin. Um, yeah. How was this smart?
OK well I didn't see the movie (although my mom did DVD it for me and I have it here somewhere to watch). In that case... EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW (where is the barfy smily when you need it????)
post #5 of 8
9/1/08 at 2:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kleine Hexe View Post
By this I mean he took a knife and cut a slit in their arm, took what looked like a sharp end of a quill, scooped up some of the pox goop from the plate and inserted it into the slit under the skin. Um, yeah. How was this smart?
Apparently this practice is several hundred years old, originating in India. From what I've read, it significantly lowered the death rate of smallpox to around 3-5% because it would give people a very mild version of the disease. Sounds pretty smart, actually.

ETA: an excerpt from an article on the subject -

The origins of immunization are rooted in the history of smallpox. For centuries it had been observed that cutaneous exposure to the dried smallpox lesions caused a milder infection and resulted in immunity from the disease.1, 2, 5 Variolation, or “artificial” infection with the variola virus, was practiced in China and India by the 9th century.1, 3 Lady Mary Wortly Montagu is credited with bringing variolation to England during the early 1700s. A smallpox survivor, she learned about the inoculation practices by Turkish physicians during her travels in Constantinople. She had her son inoculated, who remained disease-free during a following outbreak.6

The article URL: http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/prepared..._smallpox.shtm
post #6 of 8
9/1/08 at 2:35pm
Thread Starter 
I want to know how this gave people a mild form of the disease. Cause it doesn't make sense to me how this would do that.
post #7 of 8
9/1/08 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kleine Hexe View Post
I want to know how this gave people a mild form of the disease. Cause it doesn't make sense to me how this would do that.
I know giving people the DRIED scabs to eat (gross) was a common practice, and somehow that morphed into using pox goop (ew ew ew)...that might be one of the reasons why the variolation had mixed results in America, because the techniques varied.
post #8 of 8
9/1/08 at 3:50pm
Thread Starter 
I can see using dried scaps....but not the actual pus/fluid filled pox. Yuck. Yeah, I can't imagine that method having a better outcome.
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