The Epidemic Of Smallpox

Wright 5

Jayla WrightJared DiamondEnglish 428 February 2018
The Epidemic of SmallPox

One of the most scariest diseases, if not the scariest disease, was smallpox. Smallpox was a game change in the 1500’s. The smallpox most definitely had one of the biggest impacts on the world. People often say that had it still been occurring it would have wiped out mankind and possibly all mammals, reptiles, amphibians and possibly most birds, and bugs. The cause of the civil war was because of an epidemic of smallpox. That was classified as the first recorded smallpox epidemic in the New World. This epidemic took place in 1518, it spread to Mexico and South

Unfortunately, survival of the fittest occurred when the Old and New Worlds were connected. The Europeans had immunity to some diseases and were not wiped out as native populations were. Europeans were not as susceptible to smallpox. Europeans saw smallpox as an illness almost every child has while growing up. Because many Europeans had once had smallpox or were at least around it, they developed immunity. This immunity helped Europeans to be uninfected when smallpox epidemics occurred in the New World.In the Old World, the most common form of smallpox killed perhaps 30 percent of its victims while blinding and disfiguring many others. But the effects were even worse in the Americans, which had no exposure to the virus prior to the arrival of Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors. Tearing through the Incas before Francisco Pizarro even got there, it made the empire unstable and ripe for conquest. It also devastated the Aztecs, killing, among others, the second-to-last of their rulers. In fact, historians believe that smallpox and other European diseases reduced the indigenous

Well, they couldn't, animals did not get smallpox, and there was no vaccination for animals. There are no documented cases of pets such as cats or dogs acquiring vaccina virus from humans vaccinated for smallpox using the vaccina virus vaccine. Some pets, however, may be suspectible to the vaccinia virus. And no, the smallpox vaccine does not contain the smallpox virus. For those of you who wondered, but don't be ashamed. In all actuality, lotsss of curious people ask that question. However, given the range of animals that can be infected with vaccina virus, they could be infected. Smallpox affects humans only. No animal reservoirs or insect vectors occurs. Which are insects that spread a disease. And carrier state is the period when the virus is in the body, but the person is not actively sick.In the 1630’s, a smallpox epidemic hit what is now Massachusetts. After this epidemic, other smallpox epidemics would hit native tribes and kill off half of the population. William Bradford wrote of the effects of smallpox and claimed that victims died and lost strength so quickly that victims could not bury their own dead, let alone light a fire or fetch water. Missionaries and traders who traveled inland in America told the same