Started by Grace Whitfield (@gracewhitfield) ·
before vaccines there was variolation
Deliberately infecting someone with material from a smallpox sore, usually through a scratch, tended to give a milder case and lifelong immunity. It was practiced in China, India, Africa and the Ottoman Empire long before Jenner. It still killed a small percentage of people, which is why Jenner's 1796 cowpox method was such a big deal (vacca is Latin for cow).
6 sources · 1h 1m down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- “history of smallpox inoculation before jenner”
- Ended at
- History of smallpox
The Trail
- “history of smallpox inoculation before jenner” (google.com)
- Variolation (en.wikipedia.org)
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (en.wikipedia.org)
saw it practiced in Constantinople and had her own son inoculated in 1718
- Onesimus (Bostonian) (en.wikipedia.org)
an enslaved man who told Cotton Mather about inoculation in Africa
- Edward Jenner (en.wikipedia.org)
- History of smallpox (en.wikipedia.org)
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