SMALLPOX
The Rise and Fall of a Disease
Smallpox was a deadly infectious skin disease caused by the variola virus. It was highly contagious (meaning it easily spread from one person another) and was mainly spread by prolonged face-to-face contact. It could also be transmitted through the air by droplets when an infected person coughed or sneezed, or contracted from a contaminated surface. Once in the body, the virus travelled to the lungs, where it multiplied and spread to the lymphatic system. Within a few days, large pustules began to appear all over the victim's skin, starting with the hands and the face and then spreading to cover the rest of the body. Interestingly enough, the origin of this terrible disease is still unknown.
Historians claim that the appearance of smallpox dates back as far as 10 000 BCE in northeastern Africa. The earliest evidence of smallpox has been found on the faces of excavated Egyptiam mummies from the 11th century BCE. Many historians also believe that smallpox was the cause of both the Plague of Athens in 430 BCE and the Antonine Plague of 168-180 CE which alone killed approximately five million people, including Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Smallpox is speculated to have first reached Europe via Middle Eastern trade routes during the 6th century with reports of a bishop in France having developed symptoms resembling those of the disease. By that time, the contagious variola virus had already spread across most of Asia and Africa.
Over the next ten centuries, Europe was ravaged by clusters of smallpox epidemics resulting in much death and deformity. With each epidemic, some people survived, acquiring antibodies which they passed on to surviving generations. Over time, the people of Europe gained increased immunity, and the devastating impact of the infection lessened.
Smallpox was brought to the Americas with the arrival of Spanish colonists in 1520. Prior to the arrival of the European explorers the indigenous populations of the Americas had had no exposure to viruses like smallpox, therefore no immunity. Over the next 100 years, 20 million people died of the disease, decimating the indigenous population by 90% !