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Eradication of smallpox history
Eradication of smallpox history
Smallpox history research paper
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Variola rex (Smallpox)
Smallpox is a virus that was first founded in ancient times. The virus?s proper name is Variola rex, and it has various different forms as well as various symptoms. Among these forms are typical smallpox, hemorrhagic smallpox, and malignant smallpox, all of which usually always cause death in their victims. Some of the typical symptoms of smallpox include red vesicles and pustules all over, bleeding from all orifices of the body, swelling in the face, throat, and eyes, difficulty eating and swallowing, delirium, malaise, deterioration of the bone marrow, lymph nodes and mucus membranes of the body, and a multitude of other secondary symptoms. Smallpox is typically diagnosed by ruling out the possibility of other viruses, which manifest themselves initially in a similar way, such as measles, and chicken pox. There is no known cure for smallpox once it has been contracted, and a majority of its victims die from it.
Variola rex is considered to be one of the most contagious infectious diseases know to man. The virus is not bound to one particular race, culture, country, sex or age but can found at almost any location. Over the centuries Variola rex has been associated with a multitude of titles including, La Petite Verole, Blattern, Lesser Pox, and Plague. However, the virus that once possessed these various aliases is now most commonly known as Smallpox. Smallpox is typically
diagnosed through the characteristic progression or particular physical as well as internal symptoms. The virus is divided into three groups depending upon initial
symptoms, and progression of the infection. These groups include the most common and typical smallpox, which is divided into two, more rare forms of the disease includi...
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...er reaches it victims. However to this day there is no known cure for smallpox and once contracted the chances of survival are slim.
Works Cited
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Gehlbach, Stephen H. American Plagues: Lessons from our
Battles with Disease. New York: Mc Graw Hill Companies, 2005. 26-27.
Hopkins, DR. The greatest killer: smallpox in history. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press; 2002. p. 13- 317
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. "Smallpox."
CNN. 12 Aug. 2005. 30 July 2006 http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/DS/00424.html
McNeill, WH. Plagues and peoples: a natural history of infectious
diseases. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday ; 1976
Oldstone, MBA. Measles. Viruses, plagues, and history Oxford:
Oxford university Press; 1989. p. 73-89
[1, 4, 5, 9, 13] There have been no documented cases where a human has contracted the disease from another human. [4] It appears, based on field and lab data, that infection requires direct contact with the virus through means such as contact with infective bodily secretions, urine, or tissues. [12] It is unknown to scientists how the virus can be maintained in the bat populations and avoids extinction as the host species becomes immune to its presence. [14] The incubation period from time of infection to the onset of symptoms is about 5-14 days in experimentally induced animals [4] and 8-14 days in natural field cases.
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.
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 did not play favorites when it came to choosing a victim. Whether it was a young child, or a older person, smallpox destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands over a period of eight years in the colonies. Fenn did a great job in my opinion of describing just how bad this disease was and painted a horrific picture in explaining what people went through when dealing with the disease. Even as the author started her introduction into the book she explains that Viariola (smallpox) blinded, scarred, maimed and killed many of its victims. It is hard to even try and imagine what these individuals went through when dealing with smallpox. However, one thing is according the author they did not let the virus destroy them. They fought back with every fiber in their bodies to understand and illuminate this dreaded foe.
Native Americans were completely susceptible to contracting the disease, but they weren't the only victims. Twenty people died on the Mayflower as a result of smallpox. There was a smallpox outbreak in Plymouth Colony around 1633. Twenty people died including their only physician. This was the beginning of the colonial's struggle with the disease.
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).
The virus is primarily spherical shaped and roughly 200nm in size, surrounded by a host-cell derived membrane. Its genome is minus-sense single-stranded RNA 16-18 kb in length. It contains matrix protein inside the envelope, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, fusion protein, nucleocapsid protein, and L and P proteins to form the RNA polymerase. The host-cell receptors on the outside are hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. The virus is allowed to enter the cell when the hemagglutinin/ neuraminidase glycoproteins fuse with the sialic acid on the surface of the host cell, and the capsid enters the cytoplasm. The infected cells express the fusion protein from the virus, and this links the host cells together to create syncitia.
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.
Smallpox is a highly infectious and fatal disease caused by the Variola virus. It causes extremely painful pustules to sprout across the entire body. Spread from human to human, it has since been eradicated from the world through the efforts of the World Health Organization. However, there is a distinct possibility that it may be reintroduced through bioterrorism. Biological weapons may cause another pandemic to erupt across the world and kill millions of individuals. Through constant vigilance and careful planning, mankind can prevent this scenario.
Although the Columbian Exchange allowed for the beneficial exchange of cultures, ideas, foods, and animals around the world during the 1450-1750 time period, it also had a dark side. One detrimental result of the Columbian Exchange would be the spreading of smallpox from Europe to the New World.
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
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).
It is a virus AIDS is a fatal disease which renders the body helpless against other diseases. Patients lose the ability to defend themselves against viri. and die from infections.