Before Edward Jenner widely publicized his observations on vaccination, the only protection against smallpox was…
Tag: Smallpox
The exact origins of variolation (also known as “inoculation”) are not well known. However, it is agreed that the practice started somewhere in Asia, in either China or India. (It is possible that it started in both places at around the same time.) In China, scabs from smallpox pustules would be dried in the sun and then inhaled by people seeking to be inoculated. The drying of the scabs would weaken the virus — or make less of it viable — and the inoculated person would (hopefully) not develop the full-blown symptoms of smallpox. In India, the method was similar to what would migrate west to the Middle East, North Africa and eventually Europe. That method involved lancing the pustule of someone recovering from smallpox and then using that same lance to transfer some of the pustule material (pus) into the arm of a healthy person.
A few weeks ago, Ben Franklin’s World, a podcast about the life and times —…
I was recently doing some research on historical photographs on the website for the US…
All in all, this is a good book if you want to breeze through about 95 pages of information that is delivered clearly and in bite-size chunks. The images and graphics really help the story move along and be understandable. The language can be technical, but it is so only where it has to be. For the rest of the book, the language is not too technical and — again — makes the book understandable. Not only that, but the research is sound. Mr. Grannis received help Princeton Professor Martin H. Wühr to ensure its accuracy.