Smallpox

"The eruption of pustular smallpox on the face of a woman.
Fig 1 depicts the mature eruption. When the last photograph was
taken incrustation had begun and brown pus was exuding from beneath the scabs.
The patient died of septic absorption."
1906
(Wellcome Library)

Smallpox was the great epidemic disease of 18th century Europe, causing 400,000 deaths a year.  London alone had 2,000 deaths a year, which is considered an epidemic of death.  The death rate after infection was 25%, particularly among small children.  It attacked both rich and poor in equal measure (Hays, J.N. Epidemics and Pandemics: Their Impacts on Human History (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, Inc., 2005), 151).  If you did not die, you were terribly scarred for life.

Smallpox is a virus which can be passed from one person to another through breathing or contact with the pus or scabs.  The people who caught it most often were the new young workers arriving in London, who had no natural immunity.  Since there were 8,000 migrants to London each year in search of higher wages, there were a lot of people who could get sick.  It was labeled "small pox" to differentiate it from "the great pox," which was syphilis (Waller, 101-02, 2).



Comparison between smallpox and cowpox pustules
on the 10th and 11th days of the disease, 1896
(Wellcome Library)

Because of its lethality, smallpox affected history.  In 1779 France did not invade England as planned due to a severe outbreak of smallpox on their ships, causing 8,000 deaths and decimating their navy (Hays, 153).


Smallpox pustules
1908
(Wellcome Library)



Lady Montagu
(artists of the time
eliminated the pox scars
of famous people)
(Wellcome Library)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was beautiful before she contracted smallpox in her twenties (Cockayne, 22). She was in Turkey when she observed women taking the liquid from smallpox pustules and then transferring the liquid into small scratches on healthy people.  This prevented the healthy persons from getting smallpox.  Lady Montagu returned to England as a champion of this method and had her own son inoculated.  Unfortunately, occasionally the inoculation caused a full-blown case of smallpox (Olsen, 271-72).

"Edward Jenner among patients in the Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital"
1802
Notice the patients to the right who have already been inoculated
now have cows coming out of their arms, mouths, noses, faces, and buttocks.
The illustration derides Jenner's inoculation.
(Wellcome Library)

Edward Jenner (a star pupil of John Hunter) discovered that inoculating patients with cowpox pus would give immunity against smallpox too.  Cowpox was much less dangerous to have than smallpox (Science Museum of London, "Edward Jenner, 1749-1843," http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/edwardjenner.aspx, accessed 12 December 2012).  Although inoculations for smallpox were first used in London in 1721, very few of the poor would have had access to them (Madden, Cheap, 243-44).



Sarah "Sally" Wesley, painted before her smallpox
Charles Wesley's home, Bristol
11 October 2012
 

Smallpox affected Charles Wesley (John's brother).  He was called from London to his wife Sally's bedside in Bristol because she was near death from smallpox:  "I found my dearest friend on a restless bed of pain, loaded with the worst kind of disease ... From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness [health] in her; but wounds and putrefying sores."  Sally fought death for two weeks, surviving but terribly scarred.  However, their 16 month old son died of it (Best, Gary.  Charles Wesley: A Biography (Peterborough, UK: Epworth, 234-35).