Smallpox

What Is Smallpox?

Smallpox is a contagious disease caused by a virus that’s no longer found in nature.For centuries, smallpox killed millions of people around the world. But thanks to global immunization programs, the deadly infectious disease was wiped out in the late 1970s.

Today, scientists keep only a small amount of the virus alive under tightly controlled conditions in the U.S. and Russia for medical research.

Routine smallpox vaccinations stopped in the U.S. and in many other countries in 1972, and in all other World Health Organization member countries by 1986. Many adults living today likely got the vaccine as children.

Smallpox Symptoms

Smallpox gets its name from its most common sign of the disease: small blisters that pop up on the face, arms, and body, and fill up with pus.

Other symptoms include:

• Flu-like fatigue
• Headache
• Body aches
• Intense back pain
• Some vomiting
• High fever
• Mouth sores and blisters that spread the virus into the throat
• A skin rash that gets worse in a typical pattern:
  • The rash starts with flat red sores that become raised bumps a few days later.
  • The bumps turn into fluid-filled blisters.
  • The blisters fill with pus.
  • They crust over, usually in the second week of smallpox.
  • Scabs form over the blisters and then fall off, usually in the third week of the disease. They can cause permanent scars.
• Blindness can happen when blisters form near the eyes.

Smallpox Causes

The variola virus causes it. There are two forms of the virus. The more dangerous form, variola major, led to smallpox disease that killed about 30% of people who were infected. Variola minor caused a less deadly type that killed about 1% of those who got it.

Two forms of smallpox were more deadly than the common strain: Hemorrhagic and malignant.

Hemorrhagic smallpox tended to affect adults, including pregnant women, not children. People had more serious symptoms, including fever, pain, and headaches, and they leaked blood from their blisters and mucous membranes. People usually died of blood poisoning within a week.

Malignant smallpox tended to affect children, not adults. Instead of raised blisters, people developed flat lesions that merged on the skin surface. Most people who got this form of smallpox also died of blood poisoning.

How Smallpox Is Spread

The disease is highly contagious. You could get it:

• By breathing in the virus during close, face-to-face contact with an infected person. It usually spreads through drops of saliva when the person coughs, sneezes, or speaks.
• By handling the clothes or sheets of an infected person or coming into contact with their body fluids.
• Very rarely, smallpox has spread among people in small, enclosed spaces, probably through air in the ventilation system. Animals and insects don’t spread the disease.
• If the virus were spread through an act of terrorism. This is a rare possibility, but in case it happens, governments around the world have stockpiled smallpox vaccines.

Smallpox Diagnosis

Because smallpox hasn’t been diagnosed in decades, it’s likely that doctors wouldn’t recognize the disease in patients right away. It’s possible to diagnose the condition by testing a sample of tissue taken from a smallpox blister. A single diagnosis would be considered a worldwide health emergency.

Smallpox Treatment

There’s only one known drug that can treat smallpox. The drug tecovirimat (TPOXX) was approved in 2018 for the treatment of smallpox should someone show symptoms of the virus. The drug cidofovir has also worked well in early studies. Getting the vaccine within 3 to 4 days of contact with the virus may make the disease less severe or may help prevent it.

Beyond that, medical care aims to ease symptoms like fever and body aches, and control any other illnesses that a person can get when their immune system is weak. Antibiotics can help if someone gets a bacterial infection while they have smallpox.

Smallpox Complications

If people got hemorrhagic or malignant smallpox, they would be more likely to die. The more fatal forms of the disease are more likely to affect women who are pregnant and people whose immune systems are impaired.

People who survive smallpox may be scarred on the face and body. In rare cases, they may become blind. Smallpox may also cause infertility in men, and it may cause miscarriage or stillbirths in women.

Smallpox Vaccine

Scientists use the cousin virus to variola — the vaccinia virus — to make the smallpox vaccine, because it poses fewer health risks. The vaccine prompts the body’s immune system to make the tools, called antibodies, it needs to protect against the variola virus and help prevent smallpox disease.

No one knows for sure how long the smallpox vaccine protects people from the disease. Some experts believe it lasts for up to 5 years and wears off over time. Since it may not give lifelong protection, anyone vaccinated years ago as a child could be at risk of future infection by the variola virus. The only people known to be immune for life are those who have had smallpox and survived.

The World Health Organization and its member countries keep an emergency stockpile of the smallpox vaccine. It’s rarely used today, except for those few people who are around the variola virus, such as laboratory researchers working with variola and viruses like it.

Risks of the Smallpox Vaccine

Some of its side effects can be dangerous, especially for people with weak immune systems. They can range from skin reactions to a serious nervous system condition called encephalitis, which can lead to convulsions, coma, and death. But these side effects are very rare. Based on historical data, for every 1 million people vaccinated for smallpox, one to two people died from a bad reaction.

Some people would have a higher risk of a reaction to the vaccine, like:

• Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding
• People with skin disorders such as eczema
• People with a weak immune system due to a medical condition like leukemia or HIV
• People on medical treatments, such as for cancer, that make the immune system weak

Smallpox as a Public Health Threat

It’s hard to know how major a threat a smallpox outbreak would be today. There are a few reasons that scientists can’t be sure:

• The number of people around the world with weakened immune systems is higher today than when smallpox existed.
• Countries used vaccines of different strengths during the global effort to end smallpox.
• There’s no way to know for sure how long these different vaccinations give immunity to the virus.

If an outbreak of smallpox were to happen, public health measures would likely include these steps: find and vaccinate infected people, vaccinate health care workers and others at risk of infection, isolate smallpox patients to keep them from spreading the disease, and give vaccinations for the public as needed to contain the outbreak.

Smallpox

What Is Smallpox?

Smallpox is a contagious disease caused by a virus that’s no longer found in nature.For centuries, smallpox killed millions of people around the world. But thanks to global immunization programs, the deadly infectious disease was wiped out in the late 1970s.

Today, scientists keep only a small amount of the virus alive under tightly controlled conditions in the U.S. and Russia for medical research.

Routine smallpox vaccinations stopped in the U.S. and in many other countries in 1972, and in all other World Health Organization member countries by 1986. Many adults living today likely got the vaccine as children.

Smallpox Symptoms

Smallpox gets its name from its most common sign of the disease: small blisters that pop up on the face, arms, and body, and fill up with pus.

Other symptoms include:

• Flu-like fatigue
• Headache
• Body aches
• Intense back pain
• Some vomiting
• High fever
• Mouth sores and blisters that spread the virus into the throat
• A skin rash that gets worse in a typical pattern:
  • The rash starts with flat red sores that become raised bumps a few days later.
  • The bumps turn into fluid-filled blisters.
  • The blisters fill with pus.
  • They crust over, usually in the second week of smallpox.
  • Scabs form over the blisters and then fall off, usually in the third week of the disease. They can cause permanent scars.
• Blindness can happen when blisters form near the eyes.

Smallpox Causes

The variola virus causes it. There are two forms of the virus. The more dangerous form, variola major, led to smallpox disease that killed about 30% of people who were infected. Variola minor caused a less deadly type that killed about 1% of those who got it.

Two forms of smallpox were more deadly than the common strain: Hemorrhagic and malignant.

Hemorrhagic smallpox tended to affect adults, including pregnant women, not children. People had more serious symptoms, including fever, pain, and headaches, and they leaked blood from their blisters and mucous membranes. People usually died of blood poisoning within a week.

Malignant smallpox tended to affect children, not adults. Instead of raised blisters, people developed flat lesions that merged on the skin surface. Most people who got this form of smallpox also died of blood poisoning.

How Smallpox Is Spread

The disease is highly contagious. You could get it:

• By breathing in the virus during close, face-to-face contact with an infected person. It usually spreads through drops of saliva when the person coughs, sneezes, or speaks.
• By handling the clothes or sheets of an infected person or coming into contact with their body fluids.
• Very rarely, smallpox has spread among people in small, enclosed spaces, probably through air in the ventilation system. Animals and insects don’t spread the disease.
• If the virus were spread through an act of terrorism. This is a rare possibility, but in case it happens, governments around the world have stockpiled smallpox vaccines.

Smallpox Diagnosis

Because smallpox hasn’t been diagnosed in decades, it’s likely that doctors wouldn’t recognize the disease in patients right away. It’s possible to diagnose the condition by testing a sample of tissue taken from a smallpox blister. A single diagnosis would be considered a worldwide health emergency.

Smallpox Treatment

There’s only one known drug that can treat smallpox. The drug tecovirimat (TPOXX) was approved in 2018 for the treatment of smallpox should someone show symptoms of the virus. The drug cidofovir has also worked well in early studies. Getting the vaccine within 3 to 4 days of contact with the virus may make the disease less severe or may help prevent it.

Beyond that, medical care aims to ease symptoms like fever and body aches, and control any other illnesses that a person can get when their immune system is weak. Antibiotics can help if someone gets a bacterial infection while they have smallpox.

Smallpox Complications

If people got hemorrhagic or malignant smallpox, they would be more likely to die. The more fatal forms of the disease are more likely to affect women who are pregnant and people whose immune systems are impaired.

People who survive smallpox may be scarred on the face and body. In rare cases, they may become blind. Smallpox may also cause infertility in men, and it may cause miscarriage or stillbirths in women.

Smallpox Vaccine

Scientists use the cousin virus to variola — the vaccinia virus — to make the smallpox vaccine, because it poses fewer health risks. The vaccine prompts the body’s immune system to make the tools, called antibodies, it needs to protect against the variola virus and help prevent smallpox disease.

No one knows for sure how long the smallpox vaccine protects people from the disease. Some experts believe it lasts for up to 5 years and wears off over time. Since it may not give lifelong protection, anyone vaccinated years ago as a child could be at risk of future infection by the variola virus. The only people known to be immune for life are those who have had smallpox and survived.

The World Health Organization and its member countries keep an emergency stockpile of the smallpox vaccine. It’s rarely used today, except for those few people who are around the variola virus, such as laboratory researchers working with variola and viruses like it.

Risks of the Smallpox Vaccine

Some of its side effects can be dangerous, especially for people with weak immune systems. They can range from skin reactions to a serious nervous system condition called encephalitis, which can lead to convulsions, coma, and death. But these side effects are very rare. Based on historical data, for every 1 million people vaccinated for smallpox, one to two people died from a bad reaction.

Some people would have a higher risk of a reaction to the vaccine, like:

• Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding
• People with skin disorders such as eczema
• People with a weak immune system due to a medical condition like leukemia or HIV
• People on medical treatments, such as for cancer, that make the immune system weak

Smallpox as a Public Health Threat

It’s hard to know how major a threat a smallpox outbreak would be today. There are a few reasons that scientists can’t be sure:

• The number of people around the world with weakened immune systems is higher today than when smallpox existed.
• Countries used vaccines of different strengths during the global effort to end smallpox.
• There’s no way to know for sure how long these different vaccinations give immunity to the virus.

If an outbreak of smallpox were to happen, public health measures would likely include these steps: find and vaccinate infected people, vaccinate health care workers and others at risk of infection, isolate smallpox patients to keep them from spreading the disease, and give vaccinations for the public as needed to contain the outbreak.

Smallpox

What Is Smallpox?

Smallpox is a contagious disease caused by a virus that’s no longer found in nature.For centuries, smallpox killed millions of people around the world. But thanks to global immunization programs, the deadly infectious disease was wiped out in the late 1970s.

Today, scientists keep only a small amount of the virus alive under tightly controlled conditions in the U.S. and Russia for medical research.

Routine smallpox vaccinations stopped in the U.S. and in many other countries in 1972, and in all other World Health Organization member countries by 1986. Many adults living today likely got the vaccine as children.

Smallpox Symptoms

Smallpox gets its name from its most common sign of the disease: small blisters that pop up on the face, arms, and body, and fill up with pus.

Other symptoms include:

• Flu-like fatigue
• Headache
• Body aches
• Intense back pain
• Some vomiting
• High fever
• Mouth sores and blisters that spread the virus into the throat
• A skin rash that gets worse in a typical pattern:
  • The rash starts with flat red sores that become raised bumps a few days later.
  • The bumps turn into fluid-filled blisters.
  • The blisters fill with pus.
  • They crust over, usually in the second week of smallpox.
  • Scabs form over the blisters and then fall off, usually in the third week of the disease. They can cause permanent scars.
• Blindness can happen when blisters form near the eyes.

Smallpox Causes

The variola virus causes it. There are two forms of the virus. The more dangerous form, variola major, led to smallpox disease that killed about 30% of people who were infected. Variola minor caused a less deadly type that killed about 1% of those who got it.

Two forms of smallpox were more deadly than the common strain: Hemorrhagic and malignant.

Hemorrhagic smallpox tended to affect adults, including pregnant women, not children. People had more serious symptoms, including fever, pain, and headaches, and they leaked blood from their blisters and mucous membranes. People usually died of blood poisoning within a week.

Malignant smallpox tended to affect children, not adults. Instead of raised blisters, people developed flat lesions that merged on the skin surface. Most people who got this form of smallpox also died of blood poisoning.

How Smallpox Is Spread

The disease is highly contagious. You could get it:

• By breathing in the virus during close, face-to-face contact with an infected person. It usually spreads through drops of saliva when the person coughs, sneezes, or speaks.
• By handling the clothes or sheets of an infected person or coming into contact with their body fluids.
• Very rarely, smallpox has spread among people in small, enclosed spaces, probably through air in the ventilation system. Animals and insects don’t spread the disease.
• If the virus were spread through an act of terrorism. This is a rare possibility, but in case it happens, governments around the world have stockpiled smallpox vaccines.

Smallpox Diagnosis

Because smallpox hasn’t been diagnosed in decades, it’s likely that doctors wouldn’t recognize the disease in patients right away. It’s possible to diagnose the condition by testing a sample of tissue taken from a smallpox blister. A single diagnosis would be considered a worldwide health emergency.

Smallpox Treatment

There’s only one known drug that can treat smallpox. The drug tecovirimat (TPOXX) was approved in 2018 for the treatment of smallpox should someone show symptoms of the virus. The drug cidofovir has also worked well in early studies. Getting the vaccine within 3 to 4 days of contact with the virus may make the disease less severe or may help prevent it.

Beyond that, medical care aims to ease symptoms like fever and body aches, and control any other illnesses that a person can get when their immune system is weak. Antibiotics can help if someone gets a bacterial infection while they have smallpox.

Smallpox Complications

If people got hemorrhagic or malignant smallpox, they would be more likely to die. The more fatal forms of the disease are more likely to affect women who are pregnant and people whose immune systems are impaired.

People who survive smallpox may be scarred on the face and body. In rare cases, they may become blind. Smallpox may also cause infertility in men, and it may cause miscarriage or stillbirths in women.

Smallpox Vaccine

Scientists use the cousin virus to variola — the vaccinia virus — to make the smallpox vaccine, because it poses fewer health risks. The vaccine prompts the body’s immune system to make the tools, called antibodies, it needs to protect against the variola virus and help prevent smallpox disease.

No one knows for sure how long the smallpox vaccine protects people from the disease. Some experts believe it lasts for up to 5 years and wears off over time. Since it may not give lifelong protection, anyone vaccinated years ago as a child could be at risk of future infection by the variola virus. The only people known to be immune for life are those who have had smallpox and survived.

The World Health Organization and its member countries keep an emergency stockpile of the smallpox vaccine. It’s rarely used today, except for those few people who are around the variola virus, such as laboratory researchers working with variola and viruses like it.

Risks of the Smallpox Vaccine

Some of its side effects can be dangerous, especially for people with weak immune systems. They can range from skin reactions to a serious nervous system condition called encephalitis, which can lead to convulsions, coma, and death. But these side effects are very rare. Based on historical data, for every 1 million people vaccinated for smallpox, one to two people died from a bad reaction.

Some people would have a higher risk of a reaction to the vaccine, like:

• Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding
• People with skin disorders such as eczema
• People with a weak immune system due to a medical condition like leukemia or HIV
• People on medical treatments, such as for cancer, that make the immune system weak

Smallpox as a Public Health Threat

It’s hard to know how major a threat a smallpox outbreak would be today. There are a few reasons that scientists can’t be sure:

• The number of people around the world with weakened immune systems is higher today than when smallpox existed.
• Countries used vaccines of different strengths during the global effort to end smallpox.
• There’s no way to know for sure how long these different vaccinations give immunity to the virus.

If an outbreak of smallpox were to happen, public health measures would likely include these steps: find and vaccinate infected people, vaccinate health care workers and others at risk of infection, isolate smallpox patients to keep them from spreading the disease, and give vaccinations for the public as needed to contain the outbreak.

Smallpox

What Is Smallpox?

Smallpox is a contagious disease caused by a virus that’s no longer found in nature.For centuries, smallpox killed millions of people around the world. But thanks to global immunization programs, the deadly infectious disease was wiped out in the late 1970s.

Today, scientists keep only a small amount of the virus alive under tightly controlled conditions in the U.S. and Russia for medical research.

Routine smallpox vaccinations stopped in the U.S. and in many other countries in 1972, and in all other World Health Organization member countries by 1986. Many adults living today likely got the vaccine as children.

Smallpox Symptoms

Smallpox gets its name from its most common sign of the disease: small blisters that pop up on the face, arms, and body, and fill up with pus.

Other symptoms include:

• Flu-like fatigue
• Headache
• Body aches
• Intense back pain
• Some vomiting
• High fever
• Mouth sores and blisters that spread the virus into the throat
• A skin rash that gets worse in a typical pattern:
  • The rash starts with flat red sores that become raised bumps a few days later.
  • The bumps turn into fluid-filled blisters.
  • The blisters fill with pus.
  • They crust over, usually in the second week of smallpox.
  • Scabs form over the blisters and then fall off, usually in the third week of the disease. They can cause permanent scars.
• Blindness can happen when blisters form near the eyes.

Smallpox Causes

The variola virus causes it. There are two forms of the virus. The more dangerous form, variola major, led to smallpox disease that killed about 30% of people who were infected. Variola minor caused a less deadly type that killed about 1% of those who got it.

Two forms of smallpox were more deadly than the common strain: Hemorrhagic and malignant.

Hemorrhagic smallpox tended to affect adults, including pregnant women, not children. People had more serious symptoms, including fever, pain, and headaches, and they leaked blood from their blisters and mucous membranes. People usually died of blood poisoning within a week.

Malignant smallpox tended to affect children, not adults. Instead of raised blisters, people developed flat lesions that merged on the skin surface. Most people who got this form of smallpox also died of blood poisoning.

How Smallpox Is Spread

The disease is highly contagious. You could get it:

• By breathing in the virus during close, face-to-face contact with an infected person. It usually spreads through drops of saliva when the person coughs, sneezes, or speaks.
• By handling the clothes or sheets of an infected person or coming into contact with their body fluids.
• Very rarely, smallpox has spread among people in small, enclosed spaces, probably through air in the ventilation system. Animals and insects don’t spread the disease.
• If the virus were spread through an act of terrorism. This is a rare possibility, but in case it happens, governments around the world have stockpiled smallpox vaccines.

Smallpox Diagnosis

Because smallpox hasn’t been diagnosed in decades, it’s likely that doctors wouldn’t recognize the disease in patients right away. It’s possible to diagnose the condition by testing a sample of tissue taken from a smallpox blister. A single diagnosis would be considered a worldwide health emergency.

Smallpox Treatment

There’s only one known drug that can treat smallpox. The drug tecovirimat (TPOXX) was approved in 2018 for the treatment of smallpox should someone show symptoms of the virus. The drug cidofovir has also worked well in early studies. Getting the vaccine within 3 to 4 days of contact with the virus may make the disease less severe or may help prevent it.

Beyond that, medical care aims to ease symptoms like fever and body aches, and control any other illnesses that a person can get when their immune system is weak. Antibiotics can help if someone gets a bacterial infection while they have smallpox.

Smallpox Complications

If people got hemorrhagic or malignant smallpox, they would be more likely to die. The more fatal forms of the disease are more likely to affect women who are pregnant and people whose immune systems are impaired.

People who survive smallpox may be scarred on the face and body. In rare cases, they may become blind. Smallpox may also cause infertility in men, and it may cause miscarriage or stillbirths in women.

Smallpox Vaccine

Scientists use the cousin virus to variola — the vaccinia virus — to make the smallpox vaccine, because it poses fewer health risks. The vaccine prompts the body’s immune system to make the tools, called antibodies, it needs to protect against the variola virus and help prevent smallpox disease.

No one knows for sure how long the smallpox vaccine protects people from the disease. Some experts believe it lasts for up to 5 years and wears off over time. Since it may not give lifelong protection, anyone vaccinated years ago as a child could be at risk of future infection by the variola virus. The only people known to be immune for life are those who have had smallpox and survived.

The World Health Organization and its member countries keep an emergency stockpile of the smallpox vaccine. It’s rarely used today, except for those few people who are around the variola virus, such as laboratory researchers working with variola and viruses like it.

Risks of the Smallpox Vaccine

Some of its side effects can be dangerous, especially for people with weak immune systems. They can range from skin reactions to a serious nervous system condition called encephalitis, which can lead to convulsions, coma, and death. But these side effects are very rare. Based on historical data, for every 1 million people vaccinated for smallpox, one to two people died from a bad reaction.

Some people would have a higher risk of a reaction to the vaccine, like:

• Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding
• People with skin disorders such as eczema
• People with a weak immune system due to a medical condition like leukemia or HIV
• People on medical treatments, such as for cancer, that make the immune system weak

Smallpox as a Public Health Threat

It’s hard to know how major a threat a smallpox outbreak would be today. There are a few reasons that scientists can’t be sure:

• The number of people around the world with weakened immune systems is higher today than when smallpox existed.
• Countries used vaccines of different strengths during the global effort to end smallpox.
• There’s no way to know for sure how long these different vaccinations give immunity to the virus.

If an outbreak of smallpox were to happen, public health measures would likely include these steps: find and vaccinate infected people, vaccinate health care workers and others at risk of infection, isolate smallpox patients to keep them from spreading the disease, and give vaccinations for the public as needed to contain the outbreak.

Smallpox

Last Reviewed: October 2011

What is smallpox?

Smallpox is an acute, contagious and sometimes fatal disease caused by the variola virus and marked by fever and a distinctive progressive skin rash.

Who gets smallpox?

The last naturally occurring case of smallpox occurred in Somalia in 1977 and the World Health Organization has considered the disease eradicated since 1979. The last occurrence of the disease in the United States was in 1949. However, given the threat of bioterrorism since September 11, 2001, it is considered a disease that could be intentionally released during a bioterrorist attack.

How is smallpox spread?

Smallpox spreads from contact with infected persons. Generally, direct and fairly prolonged face-to-face contact is required to spread smallpox from one person to another. Smallpox also can be spread through direct contact with infected bodily fluids or contaminated objects such as bedding or clothing.

What are the symptoms of smallpox?

The symptoms of smallpox begin with high fever, head and body aches and sometimes vomiting. A rash follows that spreads and progresses to raised bumps and pus-filled blisters that crust, scab and fall off after about three weeks, leaving a pitted scar.

How soon after infection do symptoms appear?

After exposure, it takes between 7 and 17 days for symptoms of smallpox to appear (average incubation time is 12 to 14 days). During this time, the infected person feels fine and is not contagious.

How is smallpox diagnosed?

Smallpox can be diagnosed based on the patient’s clinical signs and symptoms. The disease can be definitively diagnosed by isolation of the virus from the blood or lesions, or by identification of antibodies in the blood made in response to the virus. The diagnosis of smallpox is made in specialized laboratories with appropriate testing techniques and measures to protect the laboratory workers.

What is the treatment for smallpox?

Vaccine administered up to four days after exposure to the virus, and before the rash appears, provides protective immunity and can prevent infection or lessen the severity of the disease. No effective treatment, other than the management of symptoms, is currently available. A number of compounds are under investigation as chemotherapeutic agents.

What can be done to prevent the spread of smallpox?

If the virus were to present itself again it could be prevented by vaccination of close contacts of those who have been infected.

Symptoms, How Spread, Cause, Vaccine

Overview

What is smallpox?

Smallpoxis a serious, life-threatening illness causes by variola virus. It causes pus-filled blisters (pustules) to develop on the skin. In 1980, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that smallpox had been eradicated (wiped out).. Since the late 1970s, there haven’t been any confirmed cases of smallpox.

Before being eradicated, millions of people died from this highly contagious disease. A vaccine can provide protection against smallpox, but vaccinating the general public is not recommended because of concerns about the vaccine’s side effects.

How common is smallpox?

There haven’t been any confirmed cases of smallpox since it was wiped out. Before that, smallpox was a life-threatening disease. Millions of people got smallpox every year. Up to 30% of people died of their illness. Death was due to systemic shock (body-wide infection) and toximemia (toxins in the blood). Smallpox is very contagious disease, with secondary attacks affecting up to 80% of house hold contacts. Often, people who survived the disease had long-term problems, such as blindness and severe scarring.

Researchers believe that the disease first appeared in the third century. For thousands of years, smallpox spread throughout the world. In the 1960s, the WHO led a worldwide effort to eliminate smallpox.

Could smallpox come back?

Scientists saved some samples of the variola virus (the virus that causes smallpox) so they could continue to research vaccines and treatments. Only two locations in the world have these virus samples. They’re secured at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology (VECTOR Institute) in Russia.

Since smallpox no longer occurs naturally, public health officials are only concerned about it spreading as a result of biological warfare. There hasn’t been any immediate threat of terrorists using smallpox as a weapon. But scientists are prepared to respond if someone weaponized smallpox. The CDC has created enough smallpox vaccine to protect everyone in the United States if the virus does resurface.

Symptoms and Causes

What are the symptoms of smallpox?

Smallpox symptoms don’t appear right away. A person may not look or feel sick for about 7 to 14 days after exposure to the variola virus. This time is called the incubation period. At the end of the incubation period, the first symptoms appear.

Smallpox can present as four clinical types. Most common form — known as ordinary smallpox — occurs in 90% of the cases. Other types include flat smallpox, hemorrhagic smallpox and vaccine-modified smallpox.

Stages of the most common form of smallpox are as follows:

Initial symptoms: This stage lasts about three days. Symptoms include high fever, muscle aches, backaches, headaches and vomiting.

Early rash: After the initial symptoms, a body-wide rash appears. The person is most contagious during this stage. The virus can spread easily through talking, sneezing or coughing. During the early rash stage:

1. A rash develops on the tongue and inside the mouth and throat. Red spots in the mouth become sores, which break open.
2. The rash spreads to the face and then the arms, legs, back and torso. The rash takes about a day to spread all over the body including palms and soles.
3. Bumps on the skin fill with pus (thick fluid). There may be a dent in the middle of each bump. It takes about two days for the bumps to fill with fluid.

Pustular rash and scabs: Bumps turn into pustules (firm, round lumps). Over the next 10 days, crusty scabs form over the pustules. About a week later, scabs start to fall off.

The scabs typically fall off in about three weeks. When they fall off, they leave scars. A person with smallpox is contagious until the last scab has fallen off.

What causes smallpox? How does it spread?

The variola virus causes smallpox. In the past, people spread smallpox most commonly through direct, prolonged face-to-face contact with others. When they sneezed or coughed, they would send respiratory particles through the air. When other people inhaled these large droplets, they would become infected. Less commonly, people become infected by direct contact with the rash or crust material from a swab.

People also spread the virus to each other by sharing sheets, towels and clothing. The disease is most contagious when sores first appear in the throat and mouth. But a person with smallpox is contagious for several weeks after the first sores develop.

Diagnosis and Tests

How is smallpox diagnosed?

Since smallpox no longer occurs naturally, a smallpox diagnosis today is very unlikely. Any symptoms are probably signs of another condition or illness. Before eradication, smallpox was easy to recognize, but few other common illnesses — such as severe chickenpox — was misdiagnosed as smallpox.

Management and Treatment

Can smallpox be treated with medication?

There is no cure for smallpox. Researchers believe some antiviral drugs may make the illness less severe. But providers aren’t sure how effective these treatments would be. They haven’t used the drugs to treat smallpox in the past.

Prevention

What’s the status of a vaccine to prevent smallpox, if it ever reemerged?

Although vaccines can protect people from smallpox, they aren’t available to the general public. Only people who work in a lab with the variola virus (and similar viruses) should get the vaccine. The vaccine is generally safe. But it has caused severe side effects and complications, such as heart problems and even death.

Since there haven’t been any cases of smallpox since the late 1970s, healthcare providers do not believe the risks of side effects are worth vaccinating everyone. If a smallpox outbreak occurred, the CDC has enough vaccine to give everyone in the United States the smallpox vaccine.

Outlook / Prognosis

What is the outlook for people with smallpox?

Before 1980, around 30% of people with smallpox died from the disease. Most people who survived smallpox had severe scarring after scabs from the blisters fell off. Smallpox also caused blindness when ulcers formed on the eyes.

If someone got smallpox today, antiviral drugs would likely decrease the severity of the illness. But since researchers developed these drugs after smallpox was wiped out, they’ve never used them to treat a person with smallpox. Still, international health authorities are prepared to respond quickly to keep people safe if smallpox ever comes back.

Living With

If I develop a rash, is there any chance it’s smallpox?

It is extremely unlikely that anyone would have smallpox today. Your symptoms are probably due to another condition or disease. Certainly make an appointment with your healthcare provider if you develop a rash.

A note from Cleveland Clinic

Small pox had been eradicated decades ago. You don’t need to be concerned about getting this disease from others. Though very unlikely, a bioterrorist attack involving smallpox could expose people to the virus. But the CDC, along with local and state health departments, has been preparing for this type of emergency for years. These organizations have enough smallpox vaccine to protect everyone in the U.S. in the unlikely event that smallpox reemerges.

Federation of American Scientists :: Smallpox Fact Sheet

90,000 Death in a test tube. Where did the terrible killer find shelter?

• Rachel Newer
• BBC Future

July 11, 2014

Photo author, Thinkstock

The killer was found in an unexpected place. In July 2014, almost 40 years after the last case of natural smallpox infection, scientists discovered six test tubes with the virus of this terrible disease. They lay in a long-forgotten cardboard box in a research facility near Washington.Previously, it was believed that the latest samples of this killer virus are stored in only two places on Earth.

The first 12 days in your life, nothing changes, and you do not even suspect that you may have very little time left to live.

Then, around day 13, the virus enters your bloodstream from infected cells. Fever, headache, vomiting, and severe pain throughout your body force you to stay in bed. At that moment, you still harbor hope: perhaps, you think, this is just the flu.

However, by the 17th day, a characteristic rash appears on the tongue and in the mouth. It spreads rapidly throughout the body, especially the limbs. Pea-sized bubbles appear under the skin, filled with a thick liquid – the products of destruction of your tissues, after which dimples appear on these tubercles, making them look like small donuts. Those who dare to touch them say that they resemble pebbles. If you survive (30% of those with smallpox die), the bumps form scabs, which sooner or later fall off, leaving atrophic scars for life.

This is what happens when you are infected with the Variola major virus, more commonly known as smallpox. In the 20th century alone, about 300 million people died from smallpox – it turns out that this is one of the most dangerous serial killers in the history of mankind.

Fortunately, humans put an end to smallpox epidemics more than 30 years ago, and now there are only a few samples of the virus left on Earth. Where are they and why exactly there? Is it possible in 2014 to finally eradicate this killer virus once and for all?

In 1975, a 2-year-old girl in Bangladesh had the last case of naturally occurring smallpox infection.On May 8, 1980, the World Health Organization officially announced the success of 30 years of smallpox control.

Photo author, Thinkstock

Photo caption,

Outstanding English physician Edward Jenner developed the world’s first smallpox vaccine at the end of the 18th century

This became possible due to the fact that smallpox is not tolerated by animals – thus it differs from most deadly viruses diseases such as Ebola, tropical fever, HIV or the flu.

If there is no human carrier of smallpox, its virus cannot exist in nature. Outside of a living carrier, it also does not differ in durability.

In the past, some researchers and the media have suggested that the causative agent of smallpox in the graves of people who died from it, buried in permafrost regions, may be in suspended animation. According to these assumptions, if the bodies of smallpox victims are dug up and thawed, a new epidemic is possible. However, the remains of those killed by smallpox, removed from the ground by scientists in Alaska and Siberia, did not contain viable viruses.

Spooky Photographer

After humanity ended the smallpox epidemics, several laboratories around the world continued to store samples of the active virus of the disease for research purposes, such as the development of drugs and vaccines. In 1978, it became clear how dangerous this could be.

Photo author, Thinkstock

Photo caption,

Smallpox pustules: they look innocent at first

Photographer Janet Parker of the University of Birmingham School of Medicine began complaining of headaches and muscle pain.A few days later, red spots appeared on her body, which doctors considered a harmless rash. Only two weeks after the first symptoms appeared, she was finally diagnosed with smallpox. The woman was quarantined and treated, but she died two weeks later. From her, the mother managed to get infected, having coped with the disease. But Father Parker could not survive the tragedy that happened: when he came to visit his daughter at the hospital, he died of a heart attack.

Janet Parker was somehow exposed to the virus: most likely, it entered her office through the ventilation from the laboratory on the floor below, where the researchers stored samples of the smallpox virus.

The head of the university’s department of microbiology, Henry Bedson, blamed himself for what happened and cut his throat a few days before Parker died.

Photo author, Thinkstock

Photo caption,

Whether to store or not is the question

This chain of dark events has forced the scientific world to rethink the concept of storing smallpox samples for research purposes. Trying not to attract public attention, representatives of the World Health Organization urged researchers from different countries to destroy all available samples of the virus or send them to one of two official repositories: the laboratory of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) near Atlanta or in the then Soviet , and now the Russian scientific center “Vector”, located in the science city of Koltsovo, Novosibirsk region.

Samples soon began arriving – from India, Japan, the UK and beyond. “It immediately became clear that no one needed this virus in the laboratory anyway,” says Michael Lane, who led the CDC’s smallpox eradication program from 1970 to 1981. “They were happy to get rid of it.”

Virus Grave

At the moment – officially – known smallpox samples are stored only in the two above-mentioned institutes. (When some test tubes of the virus were found in a Washington laboratory earlier this month, they were promptly shipped to Atlanta.) Both the CDC and the Russian “Vektor” store the smallpox virus in accordance with the requirements of the fourth level of biological safety – the maximum possible.

Researchers work in special overalls with increased pressure and air supply – similar to those worn by astronauts. All manipulations with the virus, which is stored in containers with liquid nitrogen, are carried out in biological safety boxes. At the exit from the laboratory, the staff is sent to a chemical shower for disinfection for seven minutes, and then to a regular shower.Air is not released from rooms with level 4, and once a year the CDC laboratory is closed for a month for preventive maintenance.

Photo author, Thinkstock

Photo caption,

Ancient Aztecs died of smallpox, infected by the Spanish conquerors

Security measures at both sites are in order. “I have led the smallpox control program for many years and I live a mile and a half from the CDC,” says Lane. “Well, I can’t get into the smallpox laboratory, not even the building where it is located.”

Only a few explorers are allowed to enter the holy of holies. For some, this is just a routine task. “I ate a dog at work with Level 4 viruses,” says Peter Jarling, head of the Comprehensive Research Center at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “I work with Ebola, Lassa and Marburg, so smallpox is a piece of cake for me.”

But there are also those who are in awe of this deadly disease. “Smallpox has caused tremendous damage to humanity, and the efforts to contain and eliminate it were truly heroic,” said Inger Damon, head of Poxviruses and Rabies at the CDC-based Division of Highly Dangerous Viruses and Pathologies.“I don’t think we’ll ever begin to take all of this for granted.”

Nowhere else?

How do you ensure that additional smallpox samples are not hidden somewhere in a terrorist den or in an old test tube at the bottom of a forgotten freezer? “Not at all,” Lane says. “Nothing can be reliably proven.” …No terrorists made any statements about the presence of the virus, and there were no rumors about its storage in secret laboratories.

Author of the photo, GETTY

Caption to the photo,

Kanatzhan Alibekov claims that the USSR produced the smallpox virus on an industrial scale

Except, perhaps, one suspicious case. In 1992, microbiologist Ken Alibek (aka Colonel Kanatzhan Alibekov) emigrated from Russia to the United States. Previously, he was the first deputy head of the Soviet association “Biopreparat”, founded in 1973 for the development and testing of biological weapons, then oversaw the elimination of this Soviet program.In the United States, Alibekov said that 50 tons of smallpox virus had been produced in the USSR. According to him, 30,000 scientists worked at Biopreparat – in addition to smallpox, work was also carried out on the viruses of Ebola, anthrax and plague.

Could this be true? “It’s no secret that the smallpox virus was produced commercially as a biological weapon,” says Jarling. “Is it possible that someone left themselves a stash in the freezer? Nothing can be ruled out.”

Other researchers, including Michael Lane, doubt the veracity of Alibekov’s statements and indicate that there is no confirmation of his words.”Basically, everyone is nervous because no one knows exactly if it really happened – and there is no good reason to believe,” Lane said.

Russia versus

It is possible that they will destroy the remaining samples of the virus in Atlanta and Koltsovo.

This summer, the World Health Assembly – the highest decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO) – will vote on whether or not to eradicate the latest smallpox samples.

Photo author, Thinkstock

Photo caption,

While the states cannot agree, the military is preparing for any turn

The Russian delegation has consistently voted against such a decision, so it is likely that Russia will not obey the general decision to eliminate the virus, if even so will be accepted.

In the United States, things are different. “We will be in an extremely embarrassing position if we refuse to follow the official recommendation of the WHO,” Lane said. “It’s as if we showed the UN cookie.”

Russia is not alone in preserving smallpox virus samples. Some scientists insist on the need for further research into the complex genetics of this virus, which, for example, would facilitate the development of more effective antiviral agents. On the other hand, critics argue that in most cases, the much less dangerous vaccinia virus or other viruses of the same group are enough to work.

Can we handle it again?

But if you destroy the smallpox virus once and for all, you can be sure that it will not fall into the wrong hands? The fact is that existing technologies make it possible to restore it on the basis of the smallpox genome, which was previously sequenced.

Photo author, Thinkstock

Photo caption,

It took humanity many years to overcome smallpox. Should I start over?

Then the question arises: why hasn’t anyone used this yet? If, say, a terrorist group had the opportunity to create a smallpox virus, the result would hardly be as effective as using other methods (for example, chemical weapons), says Michael Lane. Vaccines are available to control the spread of smallpox, and it is not the most contagious of disease-causing viruses.

Surely a smallpox outbreak would be a disaster, but it is not the most dangerous method of attack. We have already dealt with smallpox once, if need be, we can handle it again.

In the meantime, smallpox continues to exist – somewhere deep in two special laboratories. These are the last two places on Earth in which one of the most dangerous killers in the history of mankind is hiding.

About the author. Rachel Newer is an American science journalist. She works with publications such as The New York Times, Scientific American and Smithsonian.Her website is

rachelnuwer.com , you can also find her on Twitter –

@rachelnuwer .

“How immunity works”: Are vaccinations harmful?

After the empress herself, her son Pavel and Count Orlov took root from smallpox, this method of preventing the disease became popular in Russia too

In Europe, about these methods of preventing epidemics smallpox became widely known only in the 18th century, when there was a tendency to adopt the original ideas of Eastern peoples and cultures.The earliest mention of variolation was found in Denmark in the 17th century – the Europeans adopted the practice of smallpox vaccinations from the Turks. Gradually, inoculation began to spread outside Denmark. The famous French philosopher Voltaire was so impressed by this phenomenon that he managed to convey his enthusiasm to Catherine II through correspondence.

After the Empress herself, her son Pavel and Count Orlov took root from smallpox, this method of preventing the disease became popular in Russia. It is believed that the method of vaccination was first proposed by the physician Edward Jenner in 1796.The word “vaccination” comes from the name of the vaccinia virus Variolae vaccinae. The scientist successfully vaccinated eight-year-old James Phipps with the vaccinia virus, as a result of which the boy received immunity against smallpox.

In the history of science, there is evidence that Jenner was far from the first to observe the immunity of cowpox milkmaids to smallpox. For example, in 1774, during an epidemic, the English farmer Benjamin Jesti vaccinated his sons and wife with the cowpox virus.After they had a less severe form of the disease, the family became immune to smallpox as well. Nevertheless, it was Edward Jenner who received wide recognition. He not only decided to test his own long-term observations, but also introduced the terms “vaccination” and “vaccine”, which we still use today. Experiments in the field of vaccination gave impetus to the development of the doctrine of vaccines. It is to them that we owe the disappearance of the variola virus. The last death from this disease was recorded in 1978 in England – a photographer contracted smallpox in a laboratory.

Currently, there are more than 100 types of vaccines against dozens of infections, which are divided into 4 classes according to their main characteristics:

Inactivated vaccines

Inactivated vaccines contain killed bacteria, viruses or their parts. These vaccines include flu, typhoid, tick-borne encephalitis, rabies, hepatitis A and others.

Live (attenuated) vaccines

These vaccines contain attenuated pathogens that cannot cause disease.When they are introduced into the human body, an immune response is triggered with the formation of antibodies and memory cells. Thanks to attenuated vaccines, the body in most cases is protected from tuberculosis, rotavirus infection, measles, rubella, polio, chickenpox (chickenpox) and other diseases.

Toxoids (toxoids)

This type of vaccine contains bacterial toxins that have been treated in a special way. At the same time, their harmful properties are lost, but the toxins themselves do not greatly change their structure.On the basis of toxoids, vaccinations against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus are created.

Molecular vaccines

Molecular vaccines contain proteins or protein fragments of microorganisms characteristic of a particular type of pathogen. Today such a vaccine exists against viral hepatitis B. The necessary components for molecular vaccines are obtained using genetic engineering methods. These vaccines are created to prevent disease: the vaccine is given to a healthy person in order to “arm” the body in advance with the means to fight the infection.

After the components of the vaccines enter the body, the same mechanism is triggered that is triggered when an infection occurs. The body produces antibodies, but does not attack the putative pathogen because vaccines cannot cause disease. This is a kind of “rehearsal” of the actions of the immune system in response to the ingress of a dangerous pathogen. “Combat exercises”, which, when a real threat arises, will allow the body to adequately respond to it.

After inoculation and synthesis of the necessary antibodies, the body already “gains time”: its B-cells “remember” which antibodies should be produced when meeting a certain pathogen.Just as regular exercises are needed to maintain the effectiveness of troops, so vaccinations must be done several times to produce antibodies that will recognize the antigen as quickly as possible. Each subsequent appearance of an antigen enhances immunity to a specific pathogen, so its removal from the body occurs faster and faster. As a result, during immunization, only those B cells that produce the most potent antibodies remain in the human body.

What happens if there is no antibody to an infectious agent? For example, if you get polio, paralysis can develop.Measles in some cases causes encephalitis and blindness. And tick-borne encephalitis, if not vaccinated, can be fatal. Vaccination in most cases is a way to acquire immunity to a particular pathogen without any costs and losses for the body. In some cases, after vaccination, side effects may occur in the form of ailments (pain at the injection site, weakness, headache, a slight fever, and others), and sometimes even serious attacks of allergic reactions are possible.

The side effects of vaccines often lead to many questions and mistrust about vaccines. Many people refuse to do them for themselves and their children, arguing that vaccines have side effects. At the same time, most refuseniks do not take into account that the diseases themselves, against which they are offered to be vaccinated, in most cases are much more dangerous than the concomitant effects of vaccinations. Thus, people increase the vulnerability of their own immunity and the risk of contracting a serious disease with much more serious consequences.Licensed vaccines are thoroughly tested and, once released, are subject to ongoing review and recall.

Most refuseniks do not take into account that the diseases themselves, against which they are offered to be vaccinated, in most cases are much more dangerous than the concomitant effects of vaccinations

One of the arguments against vaccination is as follows: -a), so you can do without vaccinations. ” Indeed, each of us, according to the theory of probability, has a chance never to meet with the causative agent of the disease or, having met, not to get sick.This can be due to many factors, including herd immunity, strong innate human immunity, and others.

But to refuse vaccinations is fundamentally wrong. And that’s why. Firstly, without maintaining at a certain level of immunization indicators – herd immunity – rare diseases can return, which stopped spreading due to the vaccination of a large number of people. For example, epidemics of whooping cough and epidemics of poliomyelitis may recur in cases of massive vaccine refusals.Nowadays, the absence of a disease in humans can be associated precisely with herd immunity. Vaccination allows you not only to protect your health, but also to support collective protection against a certain type of infection. Another reason for refusal to vaccinate is the use of thiomersal or a mercury compound, which is necessary to preserve the substance of some vaccines produced in multi-dose vials.

For more than ten years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has carefully studied the issue of the safety of using this substance and has consistently come to an unambiguous conclusion: the amount of thiomersal contained in vaccines does not pose a danger to human health.According to the WHO, every year immunization prevents 2 to 3 million deaths from diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and measles. In addition to the fact that vaccinations can stop the development and spread of infectious diseases, with the help of vaccination it is possible to prevent the growth of some types of malignant tumors.

For example, it is known that some types of cancer are associated with the infection of certain tissues with viruses – cancer of the cervix, vulva, vagina, anus – caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV).Hepatitis B virus can provoke liver cancer. If you vaccinate against these pathogens, then with a very high probability you can avoid the formation of these types of tumors. According to the WHO website, the HPV vaccine can prevent 70% of cervical cancers, 80% of anal cancers, 60% of vaginal cancers, 40% of vulvar cancers, and perhaps even prevent some oral cancers. With the hepatitis B virus vaccine, the chance of getting liver cancer is only 5%.

According to WHO, every year immunization prevents 2 to 3 million deaths from diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and measles

There is another important argument in favor of vaccination. The fact is that the vaccinated person does not need antibiotics at all to fight the pathogenic bacteria, since no treatment for infectious diseases is required. Vaccination indirectly prevents the emergence of superbugs – strains that are resistant to antibiotics, and helps to limit the spread of resistance to antibiotics, including the most potent ones.The bacterium can become resistant to antibiotic action in a relatively short period of time.

For example, a group of scientists from Harvard, led by Professor Roy Kishoni, showed that E. coli can become resistant to a 1000-fold dose of an antibiotic in just 12 days. Resistance can develop not only to the action of antibiotics, but also to alcohol – one of the main antimicrobial agents. Australian scientists from the University of Melbourne have found that Enterococcus faecium bacteria from the genus Enterococci are often the cause of hospital infections.These bacteria are not afraid of not only many antibiotics, but also alcohol-based disinfectants. The alcohol in the gels dissolves the cell wall – the protective shell of bacteria. Professor Timothy Steinia and his colleagues speculate that mutations in the genes of E. faecium appear to have endowed these bacteria with the ability to create cell walls that do not dissolve when exposed to alcohol.

Cover: AST Publishing House

Did the frivolous Circassian woman save everyone? How the Circassians invented the smallpox vaccination | SOCIETY

Today, when the whole world is trying to find a vaccine against the coronavirus, one involuntarily recalls the stories of the emergence of life-saving drugs for other scourges that once plagued the world.True, their official dates of occurrence do not always coincide with the real ones. In general, history proves every time that everything has already happened. About who actually used the smallpox vaccination, how the Circassians and the peoples of the North Caucasus fought epidemics, “AiF-Yug” was told by senior employee of the Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, candidate of historical sciences, expert of the Council for Nationalities of the Government of Moscow Naima Neflyasheva.

Black Death Recipe

Fatima, Sheujen, AIF-South: Naima, it is believed that the English doctor Jenner in 1796 was the first inoculating smallpox.But some sources indicate that in Circassia (earlier its territory included the present Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia) knew about this method at the beginning of the 18th century.

Naima Neflyasheva : Smallpox is a serious disease, it mowed millions of people in Europe and America. Yes, it is believed that the vaccine against it was invented by the Englishman Edward Jenner, who noticed that milkmaids who contracted cowpox and had only one or two blisters on their hands never had smallpox.Here is what a well-known Internet source writes about this: “Once a peasant woman Sarah Nelmes (Sarah Nelmes, in one of the unpublished manuscripts Jenner calls her Lucy), infected with cowpox, had several pustules on her arm. On May 14, 1796, Jenner rubbed their contents into a scratch on the body of eight-year-old James Phipps (1788-1853). The boy developed a slight discomfort, which disappeared after a few days. A month and a half later, James Phipps was vaccinated with smallpox (human), but the disease did not develop.A few months later, a second smallpox vaccination was given, five years later – a third, with similar results. ” Jenner published his work in 1798.

But if you look into other historical sources, it turns out that long before this date, in 1711, French agent of the Swedish king Charles XII Abri de la Motre visited the Caucasus. In his notes, he described how he witnessed the vaccination procedure carried out by a sick Adyghe girl in the village of Degliad, and left a detailed description of this procedure.

How much we owe to the frivolous Circassian woman, who was the first to decide to inoculate herself with smallpox

“I found the Circassians more and more beautiful,” writes Motre, “as we moved between the mountains. Since I had not met anyone marked with smallpox, I came to the idea of ​​asking them if there were any secrets to safeguard myself against the devastation that this enemy of beauty was producing among so many nations. ”

In fact, smallpox did not bypass the Circassians, and the proof of this is the language.He reflected reality with a merciless mirror: in the Adyghe language there is an expression “ferek1 nape”, that is, “a face with traces of smallpox.” But not too widespread – the Circassians from time immemorial knew a secret unknown to Europe. However, they did not hide her from the French guest. Here is what he writes: “They answered me in the affirmative and told me that this remedy consists in inoculating it or passing it on to those who need to be protected by taking the pus of an infected person and mixing it with blood by injections that were given to them.”

By the way, Motre saw the procedure with his own eyes: “… in one village of Degliad, where I learned that when we passed, a little girl of four or five years old was vaccinated there … which pockmarks and pimples began to fester. The old woman took three needles tied together, with which she, firstly, injected a little girl in the spoon, secondly, in the left breast against the heart, thirdly, in the navel, fourthly, in the right palm, in- fifth, into the ankle of the left leg, until blood began to flow, with which she mixed the pus extracted from the patient’s pock marks. “

Meanwhile, in Europe, the Circassians, as the winners of the “black death”, and their secrets were learned not from Motre alone. The true popularizer of the Circassian discovery was Mary Wortley Montagu , the wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire . The educated and active Lady Mary met a young Circassian woman in Constantinople, and she told about this method. Lady Mary also instilled in her six-year-old son, and then took the Circassian recipe home. Where he was not immediately, but given the green light, and even instilled smallpox in the family of the British monarch.At first, doctors objected, but 2% of mortality against the previous 20-40 convinced skeptics – the whole of Europe rushed to get vaccinated.

It turns out that the Circassian way saved Europe from pestilence for almost a whole century. “How much we owe the frivolous Circassian woman, who … was the first to decide to inoculate herself with smallpox! How many children have been snatched from the claws of death by smallpox vaccination! Perhaps there is not a single founder of a monastic order who would show the world such a great blessing and thus deserve its gratitude, “exclaimed the enthusiastic French poet, writer and philosopher Claude Helvetius.

Quarantines were introduced for a long time

– Naima, besides vaccinations, were there other ways to fight epidemics? And how often did they happen in the North Caucasus?

– If you delve into historical sources, then yes, there is evidence that, unfortunately, there was a time when infectious diseases gathered their bloody harvest in the North Caucasus. For example, plague epidemics have been recorded there since the 18th century. There were several large outbreaks of plague, when the population of entire villages died out.Many settlements that were affected by the disease were abandoned – the population left there. Outbreaks of plague were recorded in the territories of modern Mozdok, Vladikavkaz, in the region of Georgievsk. It is known that the plague raged in Bolshaya and Malaya Kabarda in 1801-1805.

By the way, if you look even deeper into history, you can recall the plague epidemic, later called the “Black Death” in 1347-1352, and from which about 50 million people died. She captured most of Eurasia.The continent moved away from it for several centuries. But it is known that then this attack, for a number of reasons, did not go so cruelly through the territory of Circassia.

I can cite the study of the historian Samir Hotko , who identified several factors that suggest why Circassia then managed to avoid catastrophic mass mortality and population decline.

First, the Circassians knew quarantines before. By order of the princes, when mass diseases began – and not necessarily the plague, even if it was fever, tuberculosis, malaria, whole villages were fenced off.And if this time fell on the time of agricultural work, they stopped.

Secondly, traditional medicine was widely used. By the way, many practices of traditional healers are in demand today. Of course, now no one will make solutions with black ash, but the Adygs (Circassians) then still mastered various decoctions. This and diaphoretic teas, expectorant decoctions, were actively used in the treatment of pulmonary diseases, fatty foods. Sources say that the patients were prescribed a special diet, which included goat fat, butter, bear, goose, and badger fats.

Another important factor in the victory over diseases is that the use of clean water occupied an important place in the system of preventive measures. The Adygs were very rational about water, they not only knew how to find springs and settled near rivers, but in their daily life and life they paid attention to the quality of water. In culture, a whole complex of norms related to water has been developed.

Smallpox is a viral, acutely contagious disease. It is characterized by purulent eruptions on the body.In severe cases, large areas of skin are covered with exanthema, when individual papules, merging with each other, form continuous lesions of significant areas that are subjected to purulent inflammation. The first information about smallpox dates back to 3700 BC. (Egypt, India, China). Smallpox was introduced to Europe from the Middle East in the 5th century. BC. The first information about sheep pox dates back to the second century. In Russia, sheep pox was widespread in the 18th-19th centuries. In the USSR, the disease was eliminated by 1969.

For example, the Circassians never took drinking water from closed reservoirs, they used only running water. Secondly, the wells were kept perfectly clean and built separately from the house, away from the toilet, and indeed, the mass presence of people. Always put a lid on it. If a large container of water was in the house, it must also be covered. And after the water stood for a day, they tried not to use it.

And, of course, hygiene was maintained. Many sophisticated European travelers who visited Circassia at that time wrote that people were distinguished by noble character and kept their homes, clothes, food and themselves perfectly clean.

90,000 40 years smallpox free. The WHO recalls the important achievement of humanity

Representatives of the older generation can still feel a tiny dent on their shoulder, left by the smallpox vaccine. This is only a slight inconvenience compared to the pain, death and injury that this disease has brought. Thanks to a widespread vaccination campaign, the infection was defeated. The last outbreak occurred in 1977 in Somalia, but it was quickly extinguished.

The fight against smallpox began in the eighteenth century: healthy people were specially infected with the help of exudate from ulcers on the body of patients.This procedure was called smallpox vaccination. The “vaccinated” suffered a mild form of the disease and acquired immunity.

In 1796, the English physician Edward Gener noticed that milkmaids who had been ill with cowpox did not contract the terrible blackpox. He created an effective vaccine and predicted that it would eventually lead to the complete elimination of the disease. This, as we now know, took much more than one century, and unprecedented cooperation of the international community, the initiative of which, by the way, came from the USSR.

In 1958, the Soviet delegation to the World Health Assembly proposed joining efforts to eradicate smallpox. Later, WHO launched a corresponding program, which became an example of mankind’s only unconditional victory over infection and still serves as a symbol of successful international cooperation. Moreover, the success inspired doctors to create other universal vaccination programs for children, including against polio. For now, as the WHO reminds today, activities in this direction are still ongoing and require even more coordinated work of all countries of the world.

UN Photo / G. Mklin

Smallpox vaccination in Seoul. Photo from the archive.

The experience gained from the smallpox campaign has also helped develop an effective “ring vaccination” tactic, in which everyone who comes into contact with an infected person is vaccinated. This method is now being used in the fight against Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Today, only two laboratories in the world – in the United States and in Russia – are officially allowed to store the variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox.This is necessary in case the infection returns. WHO experts visit these laboratories every two years. The last time such an inspection was carried out was this year.

The World Health Organization published the official declaration on the eradication of smallpox in May 1980, a few months after the conclusion of the relevant commission. Celebrations to mark the fortieth anniversary of the declaration will take place next May on the days of the World Health Assembly.

“Khavkin’s vaccinations are promising, but he is unpopular in Russia”

Vladimir Khavkin did not understand and did not accept the scientific world, but it was this doctor who created the first vaccines against cholera and plague.And in India, where he literally forcibly treated the inhabitants for these terrible diseases, the Central Research and Training Institute in Mumbai bears his name.

In one of his letters in 1897, Chekhov wrote to Suvorin: “As for the plague, will it come to us, nothing definite can be said yet … Khavkin’s vaccinations give some hope, but, unfortunately, Khavkin is not popular in Russia.”

In another letter, two years later: “The plague is not very scary. We already have vaccinations that have proven effective, which, by the way, we owe to the Russian doctor Khavkin.In Russia he is the most unknown person, in England he has long been called a great philanthropist. The biography of this Jew, so hated by the Hindus who almost killed him, is indeed remarkable. So, the plague as a disease is not particularly scary. But she is scary as a scarecrow, strongly influencing the imagination of the masses … “

Khavkin is really an outstanding scientist-biologist, the creator of the first vaccines against cholera and plague, a student of Ilya Mechnikov and Louis Pasteur. But even now his name in Russia will hardly tell anyone anything …

Vladimir Khavkin was born in 1860 in Odessa. In 1884 he graduated from the Novorossiysk University in his hometown. Soon, on the recommendation of his teacher Mechnikov, he moved to Europe, and in 1889 became an employee of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Khavkin dealt with the protection of the human body from infectious diseases using serums and vaccines. By 1892, Vladimir Khavkin had created the first effective vaccine against cholera. First I tested it on guinea pigs, then on myself.

After successful trials, Khavkin offered the vaccine to Russia, but the offer was rejected due to the doctor’s “revolutionary” reputation.The vaccine was abandoned in Spain and France. During this time, people died from the plague in many countries. The most difficult situation was in China and India, where the epidemic claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Then the British Empire allowed Khavkin to try the vaccine in India, its colony.

The words about the hatred of Hindus towards Khavkn, which Chekhov mentions, are true. The doctors were nearly stoned by local residents. Only when he took out a syringe and in front of everyone gave himself an injection ¹ , it worked for some and people began to agree to vaccination.During the plague epidemic in 1896, many people declared that they would not go to the hospital, since “our mosque is a hospital” ² . Khavkin asked for help from the colonial authorities, but all that helped him was a small office in the medical college ³ .

A person with great authority was needed. It turned out to be the 18-year-old imam of the Ismaili Muslims, Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III. It was he who began to help Khavkin. The prince had by this time received a versatile education; He considered Arabic and Farsi as his native languages, spoke English, French, Hindi and Urdu ⁴ .The young imam, being comprehensively educated, helped to look for ways to save people from the plague. The prince provided the Russian scientist with his mansion and everything needed for research ⁵ .

Khavkin worked for two years and achieved success in developing a vaccine. People were still afraid of vaccinations, but the situation began to change when the Aga Khan invited the leaders of his community and in their presence asked the professor to vaccinate him. Then he called on all Ismailis to follow his example ⁶ .This act of the prince became key. Thousands of Muslims were saved. And hundreds of thousands of Indians from other confessions began to trust Khavkin.

Plague vaccine has been shipped from India to various countries around the world. Khavkin proposed to Aga Khan to create a bacteriological laboratory in India. And take the Pasteur Institute as an example. The prince agreed and contributed to the development of the project ⁷ . This Mumbai institute is now the largest bacteriological and epidemiological research laboratory in South and Southeast Asia.Since 1925, the research center has been called the Khavkin Institute.

… In the Pamirs, once a distant outskirts of the Russian Empire, bordering India and Afghanistan, the epidemiological situation was relatively calm and they did not hear about Khavkin here. In his report dated March 10, 1897, the head of the Pamir detachment Kiveks writes that in order to avoid the spread of the plague, communication with Afghanistan is limited, since people there die from this infection every day, and medicines do not help ⁸ .

But Dr. Khavkin was connected with the Pamir by another circumstance. During his first trip to India, the local police became interested in him. Checked for a spy. It was when England and Russia were competing in Central Asia.

Khavkin was not a spy. He was a scientist who ended up spending over 15 years in India. Then he returned to Europe. Khavkin did not have a family, he did not leave offspring. All forces and thoughts are about the salvation of people. Vladimir Khavkin passed away in Lausanne on October 28, 1930.Shortly before his death, he wrote: “Work in India took the best years of my life …”

Streets are named after Vladimir Khavkin in Odessa and Berdyansk. The scientist’s archive is kept in Israel. In addition to medical articles, he wrote about the difficulties of income tax, a footnote to the writings of Balzac. He studied Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew and Dutch. This year marks the 160th anniversary of the birth of the scientist. The man who saved the lives of millions. Today the world is waiting for the followers of Professor Vladimir Khavkin, who will protect the world from a new epidemic.

The author is grateful to Alexander Duel, the great-grandson of Professor Khavkin’s brother, and Davlat Khudonazarov for help in preparing the material.

1. Markish David (2019). “MAHATMA. Free fantasies from the life of the most unknown person.” Novel. – M., Buki-Vedi. S. 103.

2. Gatacre William Forbes, Sir. (1897). “Report on the bubonic plague in Bombay, 1896-97” Bombay: Times of India Steam Press. P. 14-15. Accessible on the internet at https: // archive.org /.

3. Barbara J Hawgood (2007). “Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine, CIE (1860-1930): prophylactic vaccination against cholera and bubonic plague in British India” (PDF). Journal of Medical Biography. 15 (1) p. 9-19.

4. Davlat Khudonazarov (2015). “The favorite topic of his conversation was Russia and everything Russian …” Science and Religion [# 668] c. 28-33.

5. Marina Sorokina (2013) “Between Faith and Reason: Waldemar Haffkine (1860-1930) in India” // Western Jews in India: From the Fifteenth Century to the Present / Ed.By Wenneth X. Robbins, Marvin Tokayer. Delhi: Manohar, P. 161-178.

6. The Memoirs of AGA KHAN WORLD ENOUGH AND TIME, New York, 1954. p. 38.

7. The correspondence between Haffkine and the Aga Khan is in the Manuscript Division of the Upsala University, Sweden.

8. RGVIA, F. 1396, op. 2, d. 1492, p. 136.

History of medical discoveries | FSBI “National Medical Research Center of Endocrinology” of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation

HISTORY OF MEDICINE:
MAJOR MILESTONES AND GREAT DISCOVERIES

Based on materials from Discovery Channel

Medical discoveries have transformed the world.They changed the course of history, saving countless lives, pushing the boundaries of our knowledge to the boundaries on which we stand today, ready for new great discoveries.

Human Anatomy

In ancient Greece, the treatment of disease was based more on philosophy than on a true understanding of human anatomy. Surgical intervention was rare, and dissection of corpses was not yet practiced. As a result, doctors had practically no information about the internal structure of a person.It was only during the Renaissance that anatomy was born as a science.

Belgian physician Andreas Vesalius shocked many when he decided to study anatomy by dissecting corpses. Material for research had to be obtained under cover of night. Scientists like Vesalius had to resort to not entirely legal methods. When Vesalius became a professor at Padua, he became friends with the executor. Vesalius decided to pass on the experience gained over the years of skillful dissections by writing a book on human anatomy. This is how the book “On the Structure of the Human Body” appeared.Published in 1538, the book is considered one of the greatest works in the field of medicine, as well as one of the greatest discoveries, as it gives a correct description of the structure of the human body for the first time. This was the first serious challenge to the authority of the ancient Greek doctors. The book sold out in huge numbers. It was bought by educated people, even those far from medicine. The entire text is very meticulously illustrated. This is how information about human anatomy became much more accessible. Thanks to Vesalius, the study of human anatomy through dissection has become an integral part of the training of physicians.And that brings us to the next great discovery.

Blood circulation

The human heart is a muscle the size of a fist. It contracts more than a hundred thousand times a day, over seventy years – that’s more than two billion heartbeats. The heart pumps 23 liters of blood per minute. Blood flows through the body, passing through a complex system of arteries and veins. If all the blood vessels in the human body are pulled out in one line, then you get 96 thousand kilometers, which is more than twice the circumference of the Earth.Until the early 17th century, the circulatory process was misrepresented. The prevailing theory was that blood flowed to the heart through the pores in the soft tissues of the body. Among the adherents of this theory was the English physician William Harvey. The work of the heart fascinated him, but the more he observed the beating of the heart in animals, the more he realized that the generally accepted theory of blood circulation was simply wrong. He writes unambiguously: “… I wondered if the blood could move, as if in a circle?” And the very first phrase in the next paragraph: “Subsequently, I found out that this is how it is …”.Through autopsies, Harvey discovered that the heart has unidirectional valves that only allow blood to flow in one direction. Some valves let in blood, others let out. And it was a great discovery. Harvey realized that the heart pumps blood into the arteries, then it passes through the veins and, closing the circle, returns to the heart, then to start the cycle again. Today it seems like a common truth, but for the 17th century, William Harvey’s discovery was revolutionary. It was a crushing blow to established medical concepts.At the end of his treatise, Harvey writes: “When I think of the myriad consequences that this will have for medicine, I see a field of almost limitless possibilities.”
Discovery of Harvey seriously advanced anatomy and surgery, and many simply saved lives. All over the world, surgical clamps are used in operating rooms to block the flow of blood and keep the patient’s circulatory system intact. And each of them is a reminder of the great discovery of William Harvey.

Blood groups

Another great discovery related to blood was made in Vienna in 1900.All of Europe was filled with enthusiasm for blood transfusions. First came the claims that the healing effect was amazing, and then, after a few months, reports of the deaths. Why was the transfusion sometimes successful and sometimes not? Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner was determined to find the answer. He mixed blood samples from different donors and studied the results.
In some cases the blood mixed successfully, but in others it coagulated and became viscous. On closer inspection, Landsteiner discovered that blood clots when specific proteins in the recipient’s blood, called antibodies, react with other proteins in the donor’s erythrocytes – antigens.For Landsteiner, this was a turning point. He realized that not all human blood is the same. It turned out that blood can be clearly divided into 4 groups, which he gave the designations: A, B, AB and zero. It turned out that a blood transfusion is successful only if a person is transfused with blood of the same group. Landsteiner’s discovery was immediately reflected in medical practice. A few years later, blood transfusions were practiced all over the world, saving many lives. Thanks to the accurate determination of the blood group, organ transplants became possible by the 50s.Today, in the United States alone, a blood transfusion is performed every 3 seconds. Without it, about 4.5 million Americans would die every year.

Anesthesia

Although the first great discoveries in the field of anatomy saved many lives, doctors were unable to relieve pain. Without anesthesia, operations were a nightmare. Patients were held or tied to a table, and surgeons tried to work as quickly as possible. In 1811, a woman wrote: “When the terrible steel pierced me, dissecting the veins, arteries, flesh, nerves, I no longer needed to be asked not to interfere.I screamed and screamed until it was over. The torment was so unbearable. ” Surgery was the last resort; many would rather die than go under the surgeon’s knife. For centuries, improvised means have been used to relieve pain during operations, some of them, for example, opium or mandrake extract, were drugs. By the 40s of the 19th century, several people were simultaneously searching for a more effective anesthetic: two Boston dentists, William Morton and Horost Wells, who knew each other, and a doctor named Crawford Long from Georgia.
They experimented with two substances believed to relieve pain — nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, and a liquid mixture of alcohol and sulfuric acid. The question of who exactly discovered anesthesia remains controversial, all three claimed to be. One of the first public demonstrations of anesthesia took place on October 16, 1846. V. Morton experimented with ether for months, trying to find a dosage that would allow a patient to undergo surgery without pain. To the general public, which consisted of Boston surgeons and medical students, he presented the device of his invention.
A patient who was to have a tumor removed in his neck was given ether. Morton waited, and the surgeon made the first incision. Amazingly, the patient did not scream. After the operation, the patient reported that he had not felt anything all this time. The news of the discovery spread throughout the world. You can operate without pain, now there is anesthesia. But despite the discovery, many refused to use anesthesia. According to some creeds, pain should be endured, not relieved, especially birth pangs. But here Queen Victoria had her say.In 1853 she gave birth to Prince Leopold. At her request, she was given chloroform. It turned out to ease the pain of childbirth. After that, the women began to say: “I will also take chloroform, because if the queen does not disdain them, then I am not ashamed either.”

X-rays

It is impossible to imagine life without the next great discovery. Imagine that we do not know where to operate on the patient, or which bone is broken, where the bullet is stuck, and what pathology may be.The ability to look inside a person without cutting it was a turning point in the history of medicine. In the late 19th century, people used electricity without really understanding what it was. In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen experimented with a cathode-ray tube, a glass cylinder with highly rarefied air inside. Roentgen was interested in the glow created by the rays emanating from the tube. For one experiment, Roentgen surrounded the tube with black cardboard and darkened the room.Then he switched on the receiver. And then, he was struck by one thing – the photographic plate in his laboratory was glowing. Roentgen realized that something very unusual was happening. And that the ray emanating from the tube is not a cathode ray at all; he also found that he did not respond to a magnet. And it could not be deflected by a magnet like cathode rays. This was a completely unknown phenomenon, and Roentgen called it “X-rays.” Quite by accident, Roentgen discovered radiation unknown to science, which we call X-ray.For several weeks he behaved very mysteriously, and then called his wife into the office and said: “Bertha, let me show you what I am doing here, because no one will believe it.” He put her hand under the beam and took a picture.
The wife is said to have said, “I saw my death.” Indeed, in those days it was impossible to see the skeleton of a person if he did not die. The very idea of ​​photographing the internal structure of a living person simply did not fit into my head. It was as if a secret door had opened, and the whole universe opened behind it.Roentgen discovered a powerful new technology that revolutionized the field of diagnosis. The discovery of X-ray radiation is the only discovery in the history of science that was made unintentionally, completely accidentally. As soon as it was done, the world immediately adopted it without any debate. In a week or two, our world has changed. Many of the most modern and powerful technologies rely on the discovery of X-rays, from computed tomography to an X-ray telescope that captures X-rays from the depths of space.And all this is due to a discovery made by accident.

Theory of microbial origin of diseases

Some discoveries, for example, X-rays, are made by chance, on others various scientists work long and hard. So it was in 1846. Vein. The epitome of beauty and culture, but the ghost of death hovers in the Vienna City Hospital. Many of the women in childbirth who were here were dying. The reason is childbirth fever, an infection of the uterus. When Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis began working in this hospital, he was alarmed by the scale of the disaster and puzzled by the strange incongruity: there were two wards.
In one, the birth was attended by doctors, and in the other, the birth by the mother was attended by midwives. Semmelweis found that in the department where the doctors took part in childbirth, 7% of women in childbirth died from the so-called maternity fever. And in the department where midwives worked, only 2% died of childbirth fever. This surprised him, because doctors are much better trained. Semmelweis decided to find out what was the reason. He noted that one of the main differences in the work of doctors and midwives was that doctors performed autopsies on deceased women.Then they went to give birth or to examine their mothers without even washing their hands. Semmelweis wondered if doctors were carrying some invisible particles on their hands, which were then passed on to patients and entailed death. To find out, he conducted an experiment. He decided to make sure that all medical students must wash their hands in a solution of bleach. And the number of deaths immediately fell to 1%, lower than that of midwives. Thanks to this experiment, Semmelweis realized that infectious diseases, in this case, childbirth fever, have only one cause and if it is excluded, the disease will not arise.But in 1846, no one saw a connection between bacteria and infection. Semmelweis’s ideas were not taken seriously.

It took another 10 years before another scientist paid attention to microorganisms. His name was Louis Pasteur, and three of Pasteur’s five children died of typhoid fever, which partly explains why he was so persistent in his search for the cause of infectious diseases. Pasteur’s work for the wine and brewing industry led him on the right track. Pasteur tried to find out why only a small part of the wine produced in his country is spoiled.He discovered that in sour wine there are special microorganisms, microbes, and it is they who make the wine sour. But by simply heating, as Pasteur showed, germs can be killed and the wine saved. This is how pasteurization was born. Therefore, when it was required to find the cause of infectious diseases, Pasteur knew where to look for it. These microbes, he said, cause certain diseases, and he proved this by conducting a series of experiments from which a great discovery was born – the theory of microbial development of organisms.Its essence lies in the fact that certain microorganisms cause a certain disease in anyone.

Vaccination

The next of the great discoveries was made in the 18th century, when about 40 million people died from smallpox worldwide. Doctors could find neither the cause of the disease, nor the remedy for it. But in one English village, talk that some of the locals are not susceptible to smallpox attracted the attention of a local doctor named Edward Jenner.

It was rumored that dairy workers did not get smallpox because they had already suffered from vaccinia, a related but milder disease that afflicted livestock.Patients with cowpox had fever and ulcers on their hands. Jenner studied this phenomenon and wondered if the pus from these ulcers somehow protects the body from smallpox? On May 14, 1796, during the outbreak of the smallpox epidemic, he decided to test his theory. Jenner took fluid from a sore on the arm of a cowpox milkmaid. Then, he visited another family; there he administered vaccinia virus to a healthy eight-year-old boy. In the following days, the boy had a mild fever and several smallpox blisters appeared.Then he recovered. Jenner returned six weeks later. This time, he inoculated the boy with smallpox and waited to see how the experiment would turn out – a victory or a failure. A few days later, Jenner received an answer – the boy was completely healthy and immune to smallpox.
The invention of smallpox vaccination revolutionized medicine. This was the first attempt to intervene in the course of the disease by preventing it in advance. For the first time, human-made products were actively used to prevent disease even before it appeared.
50 years after Jenner’s discovery, Louis Pasteur developed the idea of ​​vaccination by developing a vaccine for rabies in humans and anthrax in sheep. And in the 20th century, Jonas Salk and Albert Seybin independently created a polio vaccine.

Vitamins

The next discovery took place through the labors of scientists who had been struggling independently of each other for many years over the same problem.
Throughout history, scurvy was a serious illness that caused skin lesions and bleeding in sailors.Finally, in 1747, the Scottish ship surgeon James Lind found a remedy for it. He found that scurvy could be prevented by including citrus fruits in the diet of sailors.

Another common ailment among sailors was beriberi, a disease that affected the nerves, heart, and digestive tract. In the late 19th century, the Dutch physician Christian Eikmann determined that the disease was caused by eating white polished rice instead of brown unpolished rice.

Although both of these discoveries indicated a connection between diseases and nutrition and its deficiencies, only the English biochemist Frederick Hopkins could figure out this connection.He suggested that the body needs substances that are only in certain foods. To prove his hypothesis, Hopkins conducted a series of experiments. He fed the mice an artificial diet consisting exclusively of pure proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and salts. The mice became weak and stopped growing. But after a little milk, the mice recovered again. Hopkins discovered, as he put it, “an essential nutritional factor,” which was later called vitamins.
It turned out that beriberi is associated with a lack of thiamine, vitamin B1, which is not found in polished rice, but is abundant in natural rice.And citrus fruits prevent scurvy, because they contain ascorbic acid, vitamin C.
Hopkins’ discovery was a defining step in understanding the importance of proper nutrition. Many body functions depend on vitamins – from fighting infections to regulating metabolism. It is difficult to imagine life without them, as well as without the next great discovery.

Penicillin

After the First World War, which claimed more than 10 million lives, the search for safe methods of repelling bacterial aggression intensified.After all, many died not on the battlefields, but from infected wounds. Scottish physician Alexander Fleming also participated in the research. While studying the bacteria staphylococcus, Fleming noticed that something unusual was growing in the center of the laboratory bowl – mold. He saw that the bacteria around the mold had died. This led him to speculate that she was secreting a substance that was harmful to bacteria. He called this substance penicillin. For the next several years, Fleming tried to isolate penicillin and use it in the treatment of infections, but failed, and, in the end, gave up.However, the results of his labors were invaluable.

In 1935, Howard Flory and Ernst Chain at Oxford University came across a report of Fleming’s curious but unfinished experiments and decided to try their luck. These scientists managed to isolate penicillin in its purest form. And in 1940, they tested it. Eight mice were injected with a lethal dose of streptococcal bacteria. Then, four of them were injected with penicillin. After a few hours, the results were evident.All four mice that did not receive penicillin died, but three of the four that received it survived.

So, thanks to Fleming, Flory and Cheyne, the world received the first antibiotic. This medicine has become a real miracle. It cured so many ailments that caused a lot of pain and suffering: strep throat, rheumatism, scarlet fever, syphilis and gonorrhea … Today we have completely forgotten that you can die from these diseases.

Sulfide preparations

The next great discovery came during the Second World War.It got rid of dysentery for American soldiers who fought in the Pacific. And then it led to a revolution in the chemotherapy treatment of bacterial infections.
This all happened thanks to a pathologist named Gerhard Domagk. In 1932, he studied the possibilities of using some new chemical dyes in medicine. Working with a newly synthesized dye called prontosil, Domagk injected it into several laboratory mice infected with streptococcus bacteria. As Domagk expected, the dye enveloped the bacteria, but the bacteria survived.The dye seemed to be toxic enough. Then something amazing happened: although the dye did not kill the bacteria, it stopped their growth, the spread of the infection stopped and the mice recovered. When Domagk first experienced prontosil in humans is unknown. However, the new drug gained fame after it saved the life of a boy seriously ill with staphylococcus aureus. The patient was Franklin Roosevelt Jr., son of the President of the United States. The opening of Domagk instantly became a sensation. Since prontosil contained a sulfa molecular structure, it was called a sulfa drug.It was the first in this group of synthetic chemicals capable of treating and preventing bacterial infections. Domagk opened a new revolutionary direction in the treatment of diseases, the use of chemotherapy drugs. It will save tens of thousands of human lives.

Insulin

The next great discovery helped save the lives of millions of people with diabetes around the world. Diabetes is an ailment that interferes with the body’s absorption of sugar, which can lead to blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, and even death.For centuries, physicians have studied diabetes, unsuccessfully seeking a cure. Finally, at the end of the 19th century, a breakthrough occurred. It was found that diabetics have a common feature – a group of cells in the pancreas are invariably affected – these cells secrete a hormone that controls blood sugar. The hormone was named insulin. And in 1920 – a new breakthrough. Canadian surgeon Frederick Bunting and student Charles Best studied the insulin secretion of the pancreas in dogs. Intuitively, Bunting injected an extract from insulin-producing cells from a healthy dog ​​to a diabetic dog.The results were overwhelming. After a few hours, the blood sugar level of the sick animal dropped significantly. Now the attention of Bunting and his assistants was focused on the search for an animal whose insulin would be similar to that of a human. They found a close match in insulin taken from cow embryos, purified it for the safety of the experiment, and conducted the first clinical trial in January 1922. Banting injected insulin into a 14-year-old boy who was dying of diabetes. And he quickly went on the mend.How important is the discovery of Bunting? Ask the 15 million Americans who get the insulin on which their lives depend on a daily basis.

Genetic nature of cancer

Cancer is the second most fatal disease in America. Intensive research into its origin and development led to remarkable scientific achievements, but perhaps the most important of them was the following discovery. Nobel laureates, cancer researchers Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus, joined forces in cancer research in the 1970s.At the time, several theories dominated about the cause of this disease. A malignant cell is very difficult. She is able not only to share, but also to invade. It is a highly developed cell. One theory looked at the Rous sarcoma virus, which causes cancer in chickens. When a virus attacks a chicken cell, it injects its genetic material into the host’s DNA. According to the hypothesis, the DNA of the virus subsequently becomes the agent that causes the disease. According to another theory, when a virus introduces its genetic material into a host cell, the genes that cause cancer are not activated, but wait until they are triggered by external influences, for example, harmful chemicals, radiation or a common viral infection.These cancer-causing genes, the so-called oncogenes, became the focus of research by Varmus and Bishop. The main question is: does the human genome contain genes that are or can become oncogenes like those found in the virus that causes tumors? Is there such a gene in chickens, in other birds, in mammals, in humans? Bishop and Varmus took a labeled radioactive molecule and used it as a probe to find out if the oncogene of the Rous sarcoma virus is similar to any normal gene in chicken chromosomes.The answer is yes. It was a real revelation. Varmus and Bishop found that the cancer-causing gene is already contained in the DNA of healthy chicken cells and, more importantly, they found it in human DNA, proving that a cancer embryo can appear in any of us at the cellular level and wait for activation.

How can our own gene, which we have lived with all our lives, cause cancer? During cell division, errors occur and they are more frequent if the cell is oppressed by cosmic radiation, tobacco smoke. It is also important to remember that when a cell divides, it needs to copy 3 billion.complementary pairs of DNA. Anyone who has ever tried to print knows how difficult it is. We have mechanisms to detect and correct mistakes, and yet, with large volumes, fingers miss.
Why is the discovery important? Previously, they tried to comprehend cancer based on the differences between the genome of the virus and the genome of the cell, but now we know that a very small change in certain genes of our cells can turn a healthy cell, which normally grows, dividing, etc., into a malignant one.And this was the first clear illustration of the true state of affairs.

The search for this gene is a defining moment in modern diagnostics and prediction of further cancer behavior. The discovery gave clear goals for specific therapies that simply did not exist before.
The population of Chicago is about 3 million people.

HIV

The same number die each year from AIDS, one of the worst epidemics in modern history. The first signs of this disease appeared in the early 80s of the last century.In America, the number of patients dying from rare types of infections and cancer began to grow. Blood tests on the victims revealed extremely low levels of white blood cells, which are vital to the human immune system. In 1982, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave the disease the name AIDS – Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Two researchers took over, Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris and Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute in Washington. Both of them managed to make an important discovery that revealed the causative agent of AIDS – HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus.What is the difference between the human immunodeficiency virus and other viruses, such as influenza? Firstly, this virus does not show the presence of the disease for years, on average, 7 years. The second problem is very unique: for example, AIDS finally manifested itself, people understand that they are sick and go to the clinic, and they have a myriad of other infections, what exactly caused the disease. How to determine this? In most cases, the virus exists for a single purpose: to enter the acceptor cell and multiply. Usually, it attaches to the cell and releases its genetic information into it.This allows the virus to subjugate the functions of the cell, redirecting them to the production of new viruses. Then these individuals attack other cells. But HIV is not an ordinary virus. It belongs to the category of viruses that scientists call retroviruses. What is unusual about them? Like the classes of viruses that include polio or influenza, retroviruses are special categories. They are unique in that their genetic information in the form of ribonucleic acid is converted into deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and exactly what happens to DNA is our problem: DNA is embedded in our genes, the DNA of the virus becomes part of us, and then the cells, those who are called to protect us begin to reproduce the DNA of the virus.There are cells that contain the virus, sometimes they reproduce it, sometimes they don’t. They are silent. They are hiding … But only in order to then reproduce the virus again. Those. when an infection becomes evident, it is likely to have taken root for life. This is the main problem. No cure for AIDS has yet been found. But the discovery that HIV is a retrovirus, and that it is the causative agent of AIDS, has led to significant advances in the fight against this disease. What has changed in medicine since the discovery of retroviruses, especially HIV? For example, we have learned from AIDS that drug therapy is possible.Previously, it was believed that since the virus usurps our cells for reproduction, it is almost impossible to influence it without severe poisoning of the patient himself. Nobody has invested in antivirus software. AIDS has opened the door to antiviral research in pharmaceutical companies and universities around the world. In addition, AIDS has had a positive social impact. Ironically, this terrible ailment brings people together.

And so day after day, century after century, in tiny steps or grandiose breakthroughs, great and small discoveries in medicine were made.They give hope that humanity will defeat cancer and AIDS, autoimmune and genetic diseases, achieve excellence in prevention, diagnosis and treatment, alleviating the suffering of sick people and preventing the progression of diseases.

90,000 How smallpox killed its last victim

• Monica Rimmer
• BBC News

August 13, 2018

Photo author, OTHER

Photo credit,

Janet Parker worked as a photographer at Birmingham Medical School

Caution you may be shocked by photos of sick people!

In the summer of 1978, the most recent known case of smallpox was reported, claiming the life of 40-year-old Janet Parker, a medical photographer.How did the disease, then considered eradicated around the world, break out in Britain’s second largest city?

On August 11, 1978, Janet Parker felt unwell.

Over the next few days, Ms. Parker, a medical photographer in the Anatomy Department of the University of Birmingham School of Medicine, deteriorated sharply. Red spots appeared on the back, arms, legs and face.

They called the doctor who diagnosed chickenpox.

However, Mrs. Parker’s mother Gilda Whitcomb did not believe the doctor. Her daughter suffered from chickenpox in early childhood, and the large blisters that appeared on her body were very different.

She did not get better, and on August 20, the woman was admitted to the Catherine de Barnes Infectious Diseases Hospital in Soligalli.

Author of the photo, KEYSTONE-FRANCE / GETTY

Pidpis to photo,

Vaccination against smallpox of English children in 1962

By that time, Ms. Parker was so weak that she could not even stand on her feet without assistance.

“I remember thinking she looked very bad. The rash was terrible,” recalls Professor Deborah Simmons, who was the first of the nursing staff to examine Parker.

“At that time it was considered that smallpox was no longer in the world.”

Only after a detailed examination did the terrible word “variola” appear in Simmons’ notes – the scientific name for smallpox. Soon the doctor’s worst fears were confirmed.

Smallpox, the last case of which was recorded in 1977 in Somalia, has suddenly returned.

This disease has been familiar to humanity for thousands of years and has instilled fear throughout the world, killing about a third of those infected.

Author of the photo, SMITH COLLECTION / GADO / GETTY IMAGES

Signs to the photo,

Electron micrograph of smallpox virus

In the twentieth century alone, about 300 million people died from it.

Those who were ill and survived usually had marks on their skin – pockmarks.

To eliminate the disease, a world vaccination campaign led by the World Health Organization (WHO) was carried out, and as of the early 1970s.smallpox was very rare.

In 1978, the WHO was just about to officially proclaim that smallpox was no longer in the world.

Photo author, ALASDAIR GEDDES

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Professor Alasder Geddes worked as an infectious diseases consultant at a Birmingham hospital

And where she was not expected at all, it was in the UK. No one had smallpox in the five years prior to Ms. Parker’s case. Therefore, the news of the return of this disease caused a strong international response.

“It was a shock. Smallpox was almost declared defeated – at any rate, such plans were known,” says Professor Alasder Geddes, who was an infectious disease consultant at East Birmingham Hospital at the time.

“This disease was very feared. Not only in Birmingham, but also in the government and in the WHO there was a panic – will smallpox really return?”

Hearing the news from Birmingham, WHO decided to do everything to eliminate the risks. Together with the media, representatives of this organization flooded the city.

“Very, very quickly, first the British press and then the international press appeared here,” says Geddes. This has become a “big international problem”.

Photo author, A GEDDES / H MORGAN

Signs to photo,

Large spots appeared on Janet Parker’s legs, back and face

“A lot of officials from WHO came. Of course they were worried.”

“The incubation period for smallpox is quite long – about 12 days. So we had to worry about two weeks for new cases.”

Doctors took decisive action – first of all, they vaccinated and quarantined people from the environment of Ms. Parker.

Fearing that the disease would spread further, officials questioned Janet’s husband, Joseph Parker, and his parents, Gilda and Frederick Whitcomb, in detail about all of their family’s recent affairs.

Similar preventive procedures were applied to everyone who had contact with Ms. Parker – the plumber who came to fix her washbasin, hospital staff, hospital chaplain and outpatient doctors who advised her even before hospitalization.

Photo author, OTHER

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Professor Henry Bedson – head of the smallpox laboratory at medical school – was “extremely depressed” by the smallpox outbreak

As of 28 August, only two weeks after Ms. Parker showed signs of illness and more than 500 people received emergency vaccinations.

And everyone had one question on their minds: how did she get infected?

At that time, there was a smallpox laboratory at the University of Birmingham School of Medicine (where Ms. Parker worked) – one of the few authorized by WHO.The head of the laboratory was Professor Henry Bedson.

The same evening Ms. Parker was diagnosed with smallpox, Professor Bedson helped Professor Geddes research her tests.

“Henry, what do you see there?” I asked, but he didn’t answer, recalls Geddes. “Then I slightly moved it away from the microscope and looked in there myself. I saw tiny bricks – a typical type of smallpox virus.”

Photo author, GETTY IMAGES / MEDIA FOR MEDICAL

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The World Health Organization initiated the global vaccination program

“Henry was horrified, because there was no doubt that the virus somehow escaped from the laboratory and infected Mr. Zhu Parker. “

“I think as soon as he saw this, he understood everything. He knew where the virus came from and what would happen next,” says Professor Simmons.

“Under these circumstances, where else could he come from? There was also a theory that the virus entered the ventilation system, but if so, why did only one woman get sick?”

All eyes are on Mr. Bedson, says Professor Mark Pollen, author of The Last Days of Smallpox: The Birmingham Tragedy.

The 49-year-old professor – an internationally recognized smallpox expert – felt “extremely depressed.”

“The journalists walked in a crowd, and they set up camp under Bedson’s house. But he was a real hero – he tried his best to free the world from smallpox,” says Professor Pollen.

As time went on, Ms. Parker remained isolated, but her condition gradually worsened.

Author of the photo, EDUCATION IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES

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A patient with smallpox with severely affected face and hands

She almost became blind in both eyes due to ulcers, and besides, doctors diagnosed her with renal failure.

Over time, pneumonia also developed and Ms. Parker stopped talking.

On September 5, while she was in the hospital, her 77-year-old father, Frederick, died. The cause of death was a heart attack, apparently caused by worries about a sick daughter. However, since he was in quarantine, an autopsy was not carried out for fear of contracting smallpox.

Upon learning of this first, albeit indirect, smallpox victim, Professor Bedson went the next day to the storeroom outside his home in the Birmingham suburb of Harborne and committed suicide.

He left a note saying: “I am sorry that I betrayed the trust that my friends and colleagues have in me and my work.”

Five days later, on 11 September at 3:50, Ms. Parker died.

Photo author, SOLIHULL METROPOLITAN BOROUGH COUNCIL

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Janet Parker was isolated in a special hospital, where she died

The disease killed its last victim.

Ms. Parker’s mother had “very mild smallpox symptoms” (according to Mr. Geddes) and on September 22 she was discharged from the hospital healthy.

She did not attend the funeral of either her husband or daughter.

Birmingham declared “smallpox free” on October 16, 1978; however, no one has ever given a definitive answer to the question of how Ms. Parker became infected.

In October 1979, three judges of the Birmingham Magistrates’ Court dismissed a case alleging that University of Birmingham staff had violated the Workplace Safety Act “for lack of evidence.”

Thus Professor Bedson was rehabilitated.

Author of the photo, BIRMINGHAM MAIL / LIBRARY OF BIRMINGHAM

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The message about the last victim of smallpox in the newspaper

the name of the study leader). Ms. Parker “undoubtedly” contracted smallpox in the lab, the scientists decided.

The virus could have spread to her in one of three ways: air through the ventilation system, through personal contact, or through contact with contaminated equipment.

However, the theory that the virus spread through ventilation “did not seem plausible to anyone with the information,” says Professor Pollen.

“Why did she die, why did the disease cripple her so much?” – Professor Simmons is still surprised.

However, she adds: “If 40 years ago we were not able to find out exactly what happened, now it certainly will not be clarified.”

Over time, “life got back on track,” says Ms. Simmons.

Photo author, HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY

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Illustration showing the first vaccination against smallpox, invented by the English physiologist Edward Jenner in 1796

There have been no more outbreaks of smallpox so far.

In 1980, two years after Mrs. Parker’s death, officials officially declared that smallpox was no longer in the world. This disease has succumbed to medicine.

This was the most striking example of how the whole world came together to defeat an infectious disease.