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History of vaccinations
Smallpox history research paper
History of vaccinations
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Smallpox: Pathogenesis and Pathology
Smallpox was eradicated in 1980 by the Center for Disease and control. It is now contained in five labs in the United States and Russia, however there are other labs in the world with smallpox. Smallpox is created from the virus Variola which inoculates itself through the skin and into the dermis or more commonly from prolonged, direct face to face contact. Smallpox incubates for as long as two weeks at which time it is multiplying in the lymph nodes and bone marrow. The virus is also able to enter the blood stream and travel through without being harmed by macrophages. The variola virus also causes monkeypox and cowpox however none of these are as bad or as fatal as smallpox.
Smallpox is transferred through the air from prolonged face-to-face exposure. It is also transferred by skin inoculated into the dermis often in an existing wound. Once a human is infected with smallpox, the virus incubates for a period of ten to fourteen days, at which time the human was not infectious. In the incubation period the variola virus multiplies. Once the incubation period ends smallpox infects the respiratory tract which at this time cannot be detected nor provide any symptoms. Next, the virus replicates in the lymph nodes, bone marrow, and spleen. The smallpox virus creates virions which carry the viral DNA from cell to cell protecting it from the inhospitable conditions of the body. There the infected macrophages and virions infect other macrophages in the dermis thus spreading the virus later causing the pustules on the skin. Necrosis and edema follow causing such legions to leave permanent scars once the pustules scab and fall off (Aguayo).
The first cells to become actively produced f...
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Langohr, I. M., G. W. Stevenson, H. L. Thacker, and R. L. Regnery. "Extensive Lesions of Monkeypox in a Prairie Dog." Veterinary Pathology. 2004. University of California Davis. 24 July 2007 .
Mayo Clinic. "Smallpox." MayoClinic.Com. 12 Aug. 2005. Infectious Disease. 25 July 2007 .
"Smallpox." Armed Forces Institute of Pathology,. 1 Jan. 1970. 27 July 2007 .
"Smallpox Vaccine And Monkeypox." Center for Disease Control. 1 Jan. 1970. 25 July 2007 .
Webmd. "Cowpox Infection, Human." EMedicine.Com. 29 July 2007. WebMD. 23 July 2007 .
18) Powell, Alvin. "The Beginning of the End of Smallpox."news.harvard.edu. N.p.. Web. 13 Mar 2014. .
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.
A different perspective on a smallpox epidemic during the French and Indian War appears in Andrew J. Blackbird's History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan. Blackbird, Chief Mack-e-te-be-nessy, was a member of a distinguished Ottawa family from the northwest shore of the Michigan lower peninsula. He wrote his History late in life, after a long career in education, politics, and public service.
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.
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
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...
The original New England Natives first felt the effects of Smallpox and other diseases during the first decade of the sixteenth century. This was shortly after John Cabot explored the coast in 1498. By 1504, constant fishing trips were being made by the French and Portuguese, which started the spread of disease. However, It wasn’t until the outbreak of 1616 and 1617, when huge numbers of natives were killed. Diseases like chicken Pox, cholera, the plague, tuberculosis, and many others were introduced to New England for the first time. For the most part, Europeans had become immune to these diseases over the years. The natives, on the other hand, were completely vulnerable.¹
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).
It was spread very slowly and less broadly than other viral illnesses which took a long time to identify the infection in the first two weeks. Infection of smallpox started to grow between 7 to 10 days when the scabs formed into bruises. The signs and symptoms of this disease include 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 are different types of the smallpox disease with other classifications.
Henderson, Donald A., et al. “Smallpox as a Biological Weapon: Medical and Public Health Management.” Journal of the American Medical Association 281.22 (June 1999). 24 July 2008 .
Once your dog is infected with the parasitic worm the mosquito bites the next dog and the cycle continues. (Administration, Animal and Veterinary)
During one of his earlier apprenticeships, Jenner noticed milkmaids with a disease called cowpox. Cowpox is a close relative to smallpox and is only mild in humans. Pustules appear on the hands and a basic cold is also brought on. At Jenner’s young age he was able to link these two viruses together and come up with a theory for immunization. In 1796, while still attending medical school, Jenner decided to test this theory between smallpox and cowpox. He used a dairymaid, who was a patient of his named Sarah Nelms, who had contracted cowpox and had ripe pustules on her hands. Jenner realized this was his opportunity to test someone who had not contracted smallpox yet. He picked an eight-year old boy named James Phipps to use as his test subject. He scraped open a spot of James' arm and rubbed in a dissected piece of Sarah Nelms pustule into the open wound. A couple days later James became ill with cowpox but was well again within a week. This test proved that cowpox could be spread between humans as well as cows. Jenner's next test would be if the cowpox virus gave James immunity against smallpox. On July 1st of 1796, Edward Jenner obtained an infected smallpox pustule and scratched the virus filled pus into James' arm. This technique of placing a virus into a patient is called variolation. James Phipps did not develop smallpox within the
“Smallpox and Bioterrorism” 6 June 2001. Center for Disease Control. 4 Nov. 2014. < http://www.bt.cdc.gov/Agent/Smallpox/FactSheet.pdf >
Vaccines are one of modern medicine 's game-changing breakthroughs, but they have been around for hundreds of years earlier in primitive forms. Dating back to medieval times, the first precursor to modern vaccination occurred in China around the tenth century. (2) Known as variolation or inoculation, the method was used to prevent smallpox that plagued Europe and Asia. (2) Chinese doctors found that when healthy people were exposed to smallpox scab tissue, they were less likely to get infected or got a milder, less dangerous case. (2) The most common form of inoculation in China was to crush smallpox scabs into powder and then breathe it through the nose.(2) Because smallpox was such a destructive disease, in the late 1700 's, George Washington ordered mandatory inoculation for troops who hadn 't survived smallpox before. (2) Also in the late 1700 's, Edward Jenner