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Elimination of smallpox
Elimination of smallpox
Smallpox history research paper
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Cause and Effects of Smallpox
Smallpox is caused by the variola virus that emerged in human populations thousands of years ago. Smallpox is a specific, infectious, and highly contagious febrile disease known only to be transmitted by humans. It is caused by a virus from air currents which are eventually passed on from person to person. Smallpox varies from a mild form without skin manifestations to a highly fatal hemorrhagic form. Edward Jenner, an English physician, discovered a means of preventing smallpox through vaccination. Gradually mass vaccination programs were introduced in many parts of the world. Smallpox was the first disease conquered by human beings and was eradicated by vaccination. The last known cases of naturally occurring smallpox were isolated in 1977 in Somalia. Smallpox had been one of the world’s most feared diseases which killed hundreds of millions of people and scarred and blinded millions more.
Smallpox, which is caused by variola virus, is a severe, often fatal, highly contagious disease. The name smallpox is derived from the Latin word for “spotted” and refers to the raised bumps that appear on the face and body of an infected person. It is characterized by high fever and distinctive skin rash that frequently leaves permanent deep-pitted scars. Smallpox varies in severity from a mild, difficult-to-recognize form without skin manifestations to a highly fatal hemorrhagic form. From the 15th century through the 18th records of the disease in Europe show its catastrophic effect on the lives of people and the political and economic history of nations. Even survivors were frequently disfigured for life. (Henderson, 1947)
Smallpox was caused by a virus that spread from person to person through the air. I...
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...revention. However, in the aftermath of the events of September and October, 2001, there is heightened concern that the variola virus might be used as an agent of bioterrorism. For this reason, the U.S. government is taking precautions for dealing with a smallpox outbreak. (CDC, 2005).
Cause and Effects of Smallpox…6
References
Center for Disease Control. (2004,December).Smallpox Disease Overview. Center for Disease Control. Date Retreived: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/overview/disease-facts.asp
Henderson. D. 1947. World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago, IL: Scott Fetzer.
Thomas, R. (1907). Variola. The Ecletric Practice of Medcine. Date Retreived: July 21, 2005: http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/themes/smallpox.html
World Health Organization. Smallpox. World Health Org. July 21, 2005:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/print.html
“Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome smallpox has existed and by you extirpated”. This quote comes from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Jenner, he founder of the smallpox vaccine. It would only be 100 years later that Jefferson would see his dream fulfilled, but not without struggle. In House on Fire, author William H. Foege shares his first hand view of the lengths that society needed to go through to rid the world of the disease that had plagued it for so long. The story of the fight against smallpox extends long before our efforts for global eradication and is a representation of how society deals with widespread disease. House on
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston is an intriguing book that discusses the anthrax terrorist attacks after 9/11 and how smallpox might become a future bioterrorist threat to the world. The book provides a brief history of the smallpox disease including details of an outbreak in Germany in 1970. The disease was eradicated in 1979 due to the World Health Organization’s aggressive vaccine program. After the virus was no longer a treat the World Health Organization discontinued recommending the smallpox vaccination. In conjunction, inventory of the vaccine was decreased to save money. The virus was locked up in two labs, one in the United States and one in Russia. However, some feel the smallpox virus exists elsewhere. Dr. Peter Jahrling and a team of scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland became concerned terrorists had access to the smallpox virus and planed to alter the strain to become more resistant. These doctors conducted smallpox experiments to discover more effective vaccines in case the virus were released. Preparedness for a major epidemic is discussed as well as the ease with which smallpox can be bioengineered.
In closing, the variola virus affected a great amount in that era including, military strategy, trade, and native populations. Elizabeth A. Fenn’s book Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 sheds light on a significant aspect of that era that had not been given proper credence beforehand. She also illuminated the effect of smallpox when it came to race and social status. With regard to race, smallpox decimated much of the non European populations partly because of their lack of an innate immunity to that virus and Europeans lack of regard for those of a different race. Fenn’s argument on social status showed how the poorer strata’s of society suffered more severely from the variola virus because of their lack of finances to get inoculated; thus, the poor often suffered a worse strain of the virus which often lead to death.
Blackbird's book, like many similar autoethnographic texts, is a combination of autobiography, history, ethnography, and polemic. He opens with a conventional reference to inaccuracy in current histories. In the course of correcting the record he relates the story, preserved by elders of his nation, of a smallpox epidemic during the height of the French and Indian War, about 1757. Blackbird's story is unique because of the unusual disease vector.
One similarity between smallpox and the black death was that they both established new trade with countries they had rarely traded with before. With smallpox, the Americas were faced with a labour shortage due to the amount of people smallpox had killed. The labour was needed to work in silver mines and sugar plantations.To fill the shortage of labour, slaves were traded from the Guinea Coast, somewhere there was not much trade in before, but now was a bustling center of trade due to the demand for slaves. Similarly, during the black death, there was a shortage of people because of the shrunken population. There were less people buying wool, wine, and cheese, so merchants from Europe sook out customers in different areas. Some such areas were
Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century a disease dominated the world killing one in three people who caught it, smallpox. The few that survived the disease were left with very disfigured bodies and weak immune systems. In modern days this disease seems very unusual and hard to catch; it is all because of one man, Edward Jenner.
... risk of developing the disease. It was observed that those who had been infected with the clinically similar but less severe cowpox disease by milking cows were also immune to smallpox. This observation led Edward Jenner to his first ever vaccination technique. He inserted the cowpox virus obtained from the scabs of a woman into a boy, and then when the boy was inoculated some time later, he proved immune to smallpox (Fenner). It is impossible to contract smallpox from this inoculation of the less virulent related virus and allowed individuals a way to protect themselves without risk. Later, the smallpox vaccination was adapted by using a different live virus, the vaccinia virus which is more similar to variola than cowpox and therefore provides better cross-immunity. As the practice of vaccination gained popularity, it had a significant impact on life expectancy.
Smallpox according to Feen took its toll on American’s as well as those of the colonist and British soldiers. One other item of interest I found in the introduction was the map of how the virus moved itself across North America. The virus from what I can see only need a host to travel. After closer examination you can see that they virus followed the routes of the soldiers or that of other militia as they made their way through parts of North America and Canada. Once it started there seemed to be no stopping i...
In order to understand the history of smallpox one first has to understand how diseases like it evolve. Much like other species, diseases that survive in the long run are the microbes that most effectively reproduce and are able to find suitable places to live. For a microbe to effectively reproduce, it must "be defined mathematically as the number of new infected per each original patient." This number will largely depend on how long each victim is able to spread the virus to other victims (Diamond, 198).
18) Powell, Alvin. "The Beginning of the End of Smallpox."news.harvard.edu. N.p.. Web. 13 Mar 2014. .
From 166 A.D. to 180 A.D., The Antonine Plague spread around Europe devastating many countries. This epidemic killed thousands per day and is also known as the modern-day name Smallpox. It is known as one of deadliest plagues around the world.
It was spread by physical contact with human skin and mostly affected children and adults. This disease was so outrageous that led to a vast number of deaths in New England colonies. Also, smallpox virus transmitted through airborne from the oral, nasal mucus of the infected person. But mostly was spread from close contact or contaminated material of the infected person. It was spread very slowly and less broadly than other viral illness which took long time to identify the infection in first two weeks. Infection of smallpox started to grow between 7 to 10 days when the scabs form onto bruise. The signs and symptoms of this disease were with high fever, widespread rashes, redness, muscle pain, headache, common cold, vomiting, nausea and many more. Consequently, the virus was found in the bone marrow along with bloodstream in huge numbers. There were different types in between the smallpox disease with other classification. By preserving the virus, Boylston personally inoculated 247 people in 1721 and 1722 to prevent transmission. However, from there only six people died, and Boylston was the first American surgeon to inoculate his patients personally. The author portrays the background data Boylston used to examine the inoculation practice on different age and gender of persons to cure his patients were from previous experiments. The inoculation method provided higher rank of immunity in preventing smallpox infection. The prevention for smallpox was through inducing antibodies by vaccine which lasts longer for a person taken
It was around the 1339 CE when the pandemic broke out. Death’s scythe swept across Europe, only missing a few servants and nobles. The foundations of middle aged life collapsed, it was time when Europe changed. This would be well known as the Black Death or the Bubonic Plague.
Until its eradication, smallpox was a disease that had been ravaging the human race for a very long time. It emerged as much as 10,000 years ago, probably in the Nile Valley and what is now the Middle East. This emergence occurred around the time that humans began to create farming communities and turn away from nomadic existence, thus allowing the smallpox virus a chance to move from person to person (Ogden 2). Since that time, outbreaks have occurred in all different regions of the globe, although the disease was not introduced into the New World until 1518 when a Spanish ship landed on the island of Hispaniola, thus wiping out half of the population. The Spanish sailors had previously been infected by a strain of the smallpox virus and were therefore immune. The natives, however, had never been exposed to the virus and their bodies were unable to fight it off at all. It is thought that as much as 90 percent of the native populations of the New World were killed by smallpox in conjunction with the other previously unseen diseases that were brought over by explorers (Ogden 3).