Smallpox Research Paper
Sean Strickland
Deborah Moreno
History Pre-1862
April, 2016
Smallpox
Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations around 10,000 BC. The earliest physical evidence of it seems to be the rashes on the mummified body of Pharaoh Ramses V(the fourth) of Egypt. Small pox is a virus known by a Latin name Variola, it is derived from Varius “spotted” or Varus “Pimple”. The virus starts out in the small blood vessels of the skin, mouth and throat before viciously spreading. Smallpox is easily transmitted through saliva, or any other bodily fluid. Sometimes, if the condition was right, the virus could go airborne sweeping through communities. The mortality rate in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle-east had a mortality rate of 20%-30%, …show more content…
The island of Haiti was first inhabited by Taino Natives the most advanced Indians in all of the Caribbean. While in Haiti around 1496, before Columbus returned to Spain he told his brother Bartolome to do a headcount of all Natives on the island. Bartolome reported that there was ~1.1 million male adults; he didn’t count children and females. It’s safe to say there used to be about 3 million people. Some researchers argued that there was up to eight million natives in Haiti at the time of Columbus’s arrival. Also, Spanish brought slaves to Haiti in 1507. Slave ships were notorious for being extremely dirty and disease ridden. The Spanish claimed that slaves brought smallpox that infected the native’s tribes on Haiti. Small pox swept through the Haiti mercilessly killing millions. By 1517, 26,000 Taino were alive, and then by 1542, that number reduced to about two-hundred Taino. Documents say Taino went extinct in Haiti two decades …show more content…
The mortality rate amongst inoculated individuals was significantly lower at around 6%, unlike receiving the virus naturally --which is about 30-50% mortality rate in “old world” peoples. When the Inoculation procedure started becoming a wide known procedure amongst people in America, the smallpox virus wasn’t the ultimate killer of diseases by the end of the 18th century. Though it still lived in the population, it wasn’t as worrisome. Yellow fever and the plague started being the ultimate killer of colonials. But, that didn’t change for the natives, unfortunately the United States didn’t fully implement an inoculation program for Native American till 1833. But on a more positive note, the world’s last known case of the deadly disease Smallpox was in 1975 in
Deborah Moreno
History Pre-1862
April, 2016
Smallpox
Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations around 10,000 BC. The earliest physical evidence of it seems to be the rashes on the mummified body of Pharaoh Ramses V(the fourth) of Egypt. Small pox is a virus known by a Latin name Variola, it is derived from Varius “spotted” or Varus “Pimple”. The virus starts out in the small blood vessels of the skin, mouth and throat before viciously spreading. Smallpox is easily transmitted through saliva, or any other bodily fluid. Sometimes, if the condition was right, the virus could go airborne sweeping through communities. The mortality rate in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle-east had a mortality rate of 20%-30%, …show more content…
The island of Haiti was first inhabited by Taino Natives the most advanced Indians in all of the Caribbean. While in Haiti around 1496, before Columbus returned to Spain he told his brother Bartolome to do a headcount of all Natives on the island. Bartolome reported that there was ~1.1 million male adults; he didn’t count children and females. It’s safe to say there used to be about 3 million people. Some researchers argued that there was up to eight million natives in Haiti at the time of Columbus’s arrival. Also, Spanish brought slaves to Haiti in 1507. Slave ships were notorious for being extremely dirty and disease ridden. The Spanish claimed that slaves brought smallpox that infected the native’s tribes on Haiti. Small pox swept through the Haiti mercilessly killing millions. By 1517, 26,000 Taino were alive, and then by 1542, that number reduced to about two-hundred Taino. Documents say Taino went extinct in Haiti two decades …show more content…
The mortality rate amongst inoculated individuals was significantly lower at around 6%, unlike receiving the virus naturally --which is about 30-50% mortality rate in “old world” peoples. When the Inoculation procedure started becoming a wide known procedure amongst people in America, the smallpox virus wasn’t the ultimate killer of diseases by the end of the 18th century. Though it still lived in the population, it wasn’t as worrisome. Yellow fever and the plague started being the ultimate killer of colonials. But, that didn’t change for the natives, unfortunately the United States didn’t fully implement an inoculation program for Native American till 1833. But on a more positive note, the world’s last known case of the deadly disease Smallpox was in 1975 in