smallpox

• History of smallpox: For centuries, smallpox affected political and social agendas. Smallpox epidemics plagued Europe and Asia until 1796, when Edward Jenner tested his theory of disease protection. He did this by inoculating a young boy with material obtained from a milkmaid who was infected with the milder cowpox virus. The success of that experiment led to the development of a vaccine (from vacca, the Latin word for cow). Afterward, the incidence of smallpox infection in Europe steadily declined.

• In the Americas, smallpox severely weakened the native population. They had never been exposed to smallpox, which the European explorers brought with them to the Americas in the 1600s. The British forces at Fort Pitt (later to become Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) purposefully gave smallpox-contaminated blankets and goods to Native Americans during the French and Indian Wars in an attempt to weaken the Native American resistance to colonial expansion. Due to this and through natural spread, the epidemic that followed killed half of the Native American population.