Smallpox Flashcards
Historical symptoms of Smallpox
people who survived had distinctive scars on their faces and hands
This helps historians figure out who had the disease and at what time.
What is smallpox?
- an acute infection transmitted from human to human through the respiratory system.
- develop a strong degree of immunity
Who did the disease target?
it mainly affected Indigenous people in North America who had no immunity, this resulted in a large mortality rate.
- it also targeted children once established in a population.
what were the 2 main variants?
variola major - morality of 25-30%
variola minor - morality of 1% or less
It became a more virulent disease in Europe in the 17th century.
Movement of the disease
it arrived soon after the Europeans landed in the Americas in 1492.
by 1519 it had killed 30-50% of the population in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico
killed 5-8 million in the siege of Tenochtitlan in 2 months in 1520
by 1524 Smallpox had spread south from Mexico
reached Brazil by 1562 along with measles, the 2 diseases contributing to the mortality rate, conditions of the slave trade also caused disease and death
what was the role of portmanteau biota?
when settlers transported their ecosystems along with them to the Americas.
smallpox spread faster than the colonizers due to disease and food contamination.
How fast did it spread?
Incubation period: 7-14 days
long enough for an infected person to travel while carrying the disease, spreading it more to other locations.
What was the first epidemic on the eastern seaboard?
it was most likely from an English or Dutch fishing boat known a the Mayflower II
from 1617 to 1619, it killed up to 2000 people.
Smallpox in 1634
Arrived in British North America and New France by ships from France
spread among the Huron villages, towns were destroyed, agriculture was abandoned, hunting and fishing and gathering ceased.
this caused famine, increased morbidity and susceptibility to the disease.
cumulative effects on the disease
smallpox was the most identifiable pathogen that came to the Americas.
caused extreme symptoms that were deadly
Measles and influenza came along with smallpox
harvests were abandoned, disrupting famine.
synergistic effect: when many novel pathogens hit a population simultaneously, increasing mortality rate.
3 types of Morbiviruses
canine distemper - when dogs consumed dead bodies with smallpox
rinderpest - euriasia
measles - eurasia
Responses to Smallpox
- existed through the 17th & 18th century
- epidemic
- indigenous people treated it with their own cosmologies (ways of thinking about the world)
what kind of healing did they use?
empirical healing
- therapy
- herbal, surgical and spiritual responses
Treatments used by the Cherokee
- sickness came from failed relationships with the spirit world
- Thunder and winds, disease like lightning
- treatments included pouring cold water on the sick
- sweat baths followed by submerging in cold water
European view on Indigenous treatment
Europeans criticized their ideas because their methods did not line up with the humoral theories
they thought that God had put the disease upon the Indigenous people to clear off the land so that they could settle and take resources
