1. Smallpox and European Colonization

2. History of Smallpox
First appeared in Northeastern Africa around 10,000 BC
Skin lesions on mummies BC
Ramses V
Smallpox is believed to have appeared around 10,000 BC during the first agricultural settlements in northeastern Africa. The earliest evidence of skin lesions resembling those of smallpox is found on the faces of mummies (1570 to 1085 BC) and in the well-preserved mummy of Ramses V, who died as a young man in 1157 BC. While poxvirus was never isolated or identified in tissue samples from Ramses V, skin lesions were consistent with smallpox. Source: World Health, May Published by World Health Organization.
Center for Food Security and Public Health Iowa State University

3. Why did the Europeans have better immunity than indigenous Americans?
Increased exposure to microbes due to higher density populations in Europe
No livestock in North and South America
Traditionally these animals and humans pass disease back and forth between them
Theory that microbes could not survive trip north through Asia and across Beringia
A literal “decontamination chamber”

4. Cowpox
A related illness that could sometimes be transmitted from cattle to people.
It had been known for centuries that exposure to cowpox could keep someone from getting smallpox, or lessen the impact of the disease.

5. Therefore. . .
Less immunity to disease from either genetic resistance or exposure to disease

6. Robert Cushman (1577-1623) Agent for Leiden Congregation
They were wont to be the most cruel and treacherous People in all these parts, even like Lions, but to us they have been like Lambs, so kind, so submissive, and trusty, as a man may truly say, many Christians are not so kind, nor sincere. They were very much wasted of late, by reason of a great Mortality that fell amongst them three years since, which together with their own Civil Dissensions and Bloody Wars, hath so wasted them, as I think the twentieth person is scarce left alive, and those that are left, have their courage much abated, and their countenance is dejected, and they seem as a People affrighted.
December 12, 1621 – Sermon

7. 95% Death rate from smallpox?
Between 1617 – 1620 the native population of coastal New England was decreased by 90-96%
950/1000 villagers in Connecticut were reported to have died by Dutch merchants
“for it pleased God to afflict these Indians with such a deadly sickness, that out of 1,000, over 950 of them died, and many of them lay rotting above ground for want of burial. . . “ William Bradford

8. Death Rate cont.
California – the indigenous population decreased from approx. 300,000 to 30,000 between 1769 and 1869
The weakened populations of the Northern Missouri Watershed in the wake of smallpox, control over the northern fur trade passed from the severely weakened Crees and Assiniboines to the Hudson's Bay Company.

9. Variolation Ground scabs, pus, vesicles used to vaccinate
China, powdered scabs blown into nostrils
Pills from fleas of cows
India, application of scab or pus to scarified skin
Children exposed to mild smallpox
Physicians realized that smallpox survivors became immune to the disease. Thus the method of variolation was started. This involved taking samples (vesicles, pus, ground scabs) from benignly diseased patients and introduce the material into susceptible patients via the nose or skin. In China, powdered scabs of smallpox pustules were blown into the nostrils of healthy persons through a tube. Also in China, 100 years before Edward Jenner, healthy persons took pills made from the fleas of cows to prevent smallpox; this is the first recorded example of oral vaccination. In India, variolation took several forms, the most common of which was the application of scabs or pus from a person with smallpox to the intact or scarified skin of a healthy person. Children were exposed to organisms from persons with mild cases of smallpox, and various forms of material from persons with smallpox were administered to healthy adults in different ways.
Center for Food Security and Public Health Iowa State University

10. Variolation Variolation came to Europe early 18th century
1715, Lady Mary Wortley Montague
1718, Inoculated her 5 yr. old son
1721, inoculated her daughter in London
The English aristocrat Lady Mary Wortley Montague was responsible for the introduction of variolation into England. She had an episode of smallpox in 1715 that disfigured her beautiful face. She was so determined to prevent the ravages of smallpox and so impressed by the Turkish method that she demanded they inoculate her 5-year-old son in Turkey in March 1718 and her 4-year-old daughter in London in April This was the first professional variolation performed in England. In 1745, the London Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital was founded. This center was dedicated exclusively to the treatment and prevention of smallpox.
Center for Food Security and Public Health Iowa State University

11. Biological Warfare Lord Jeffrey Amherst
Came up with plan to distribute smallpox infested blankets to Native Americans during Pontiac’s rebellion – following French and Indian War
Trent's entry for May 24, 1763, includes the following statement:
... we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect.

12. Amherst College China

13. American Revolution Smallpox Becomes a Weapon of War
Of a force of 10,000 Continental Army soldiers in Quebec, about 5,000 fell ill with smallpox. A British commander may have deliberately intended to spread the disease by sending recently variolated civilians into Continental Army encampments.
The Continental task force commander, Major General John Thomas, died of smallpox. The unit retreated southward in May Arguably, this defeat preserved the status of the northern British colonies, permitting Canada to become the separate country it is today. John Adams wrote:
“Our misfortunes in Canada are enough to melt the heart of stone. The smallpox is ten times more terrible than the British, Canadians and Indians together. This was the cause of our precipitate retreat from Quebec.”
— John Adams, quoted in Ian Glynn and Jenifer Glynn, The Life

14. Inoculation becomes widespsread (Also called Variolation)
 the only known preventative was "variolation," the deliberate introduction of material from smallpox pustules into a cut in the patient's skin. For reasons still unknown, this usually led to a relatively--but only relatively--mild version of the disease, followed by lifetime immunity. 

15. George Washington
Washington (after surviving a bout of smallpox as a teenager) had his troops inoculated in 1777.

16. Edward Jenner 1796, England, May Development of vaccine using cowpox
Inoculated James Phipps with fluid from milkmaid’s pustule
Subsequent variolation of boy produced no reaction
Development of vaccine using cowpox
Protective for smallpox
In Gloucestershire, England, on May 14th, 1796, Jenner extracted fluid from a pustule on a milkmaid and used it to inoculate a healthy 8-year-old boy (James Phipps). Six weeks later, Jenner variolated the child but produced no reaction. Jenner, in combination with George Pearson and others, developed a vaccine using cowpox. This prevented the vaccinee from developing smallpox if variolated or exposed to smallpox.
Edward Jenner
Center for Food Security and Public Health Iowa State University