How Did Smallpox Impact The US In The 1900's

Decent Essays
How did smallpox impact the U.S. in 1900’s

In 1900’s, smallpox changed the way people lived and caused a number of deaths. Smallpox influenced a lot of people and had a big impact on the United States of America. Smallpox was a very sickening and death tolling infection. To start off, “Smallpox was a very serious illness caused by a virus called the Variol” (What is Smallpox?-KidsHealth). In other words, smallpox is an illness that you can die from and is very miserable. According to Achievement in Public Health, 1900-1999 Impact of Vaccines,”The last case of smallpox in the United States was in 1949.” To put things in a different way, it is extremely rare to get smallpox in today’s modern society. Smallpox can kill you if you do not have

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Chapter 3 Article 3: Cherokee Medicine, Colonial Germs: An Indigenous Nation s Fight against Smallpox, 1518-1824 Chapter two of the textbook, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism Containing and Preventing Biological Threats, by Jeffrey R. Ryan, goes into extensive detail on the numerous types of category A diseases and their agents. Category A diseases and agents, hold the greatest potential for harm in the case of a bioterrorist attack (Ryan 2016, p. 51). Throughout this chapter the different types of category A diseased are listed, one of the most feared and well know of these is Smallpox. Pursuing this further, if Smallpox were to be formed into a biological weapon, it would be very hazardous to the citizens of the United States (Ryan 2016, p.…

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Abstract Smallpox is a highly infectious disease caused by the Variola virus. This report explores the taxonomic classification, “life cycle”, and mechanism of replication of this pathogen, as well as discusses the virulence and treatment options for an infected human host. This member of the Orthopoxvirus genus is extremely virulent, and has a fatality rate of nearly 30%. While this virus only attacks a human host, similar members of the Voxviridae family produce similar infections in animals.…

    • 854 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Philadelphia is a place of prosper and growth. A figurehead for American expansion and home of the famous Liberty Bell. However, in 1793 it was an incredibly different story, the city was wrought with sickness. Molly Caldwell’s book An American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Disease that Shaped Our History highlights that devastating time in which Yellow Fever reigned over women, men, and children alike. A truly morbid and dark time in American history.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article, the author used lots resources from historical views to prove that the smallpox impacted the American soldiers during the war. Because many British soldiers might get the smallpox in their childhood, they had the immunity after they were healed. For many Americans, they did not have immunity and most of them might die quickly because they did have a good medical care or supplies. So, the American soldiers struggled for the smallpox.…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Columbian Exchange brought good and bad things, for example some of the bad things they brought were diseases. Some common old world diseases are small pox, measles, malaria, yellow fever influenza, and chicken pox. Some of the new world diseases were syphilis, polio, hepatitis, and encephalitis. The Indian population was most effected by small pox.…

    • 197 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Columbian Exchange Impact

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A person caught this disease by breathing in the smallpox virus or by coming into contact with the pus filled boils or scabs on a victim's skin. Death often occurred after a high fever, the eruption of of boils, and massive vomiting of blood. Survivors were also usually immune from other smallpox infections. The first smallpox epidemic in the new world beginning 1518 on Hispaniola among the Taino. Within 100 years the Taino were extinct mainly due to smallpox and other diseases.…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Since the beginning of time, diseases have existed and troubled humanity. Just alone, the extremely contagious and deadly disease, smallpox took the lives of 400 million until it was eradicated in 1977. For decades, smallpox infected thousand of native americans who was extremely vulnerable to the disease brought by early settlers from Europe. The european contact brought huge epidemics, plowing through villages and the population of the native americans, causing panic and widespread hatred towards to settlers from some native tribes. However, the rich history of this unique disease has influenced many characteristics in the development of America with it’s atrocious epidemics, and the roles played through wars and conflicts in history.…

    • 350 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the fall of 1918, World War I was winding down and peace was on the horizon. US involvement in this Great War and its success in defeating Germany in the war greatly increased its national prestige among the countries, especially those in Europe. However, with the end of World War I, a deadly virus started to spread within the country, killing more people than during World War I. The influenza pandemic had disrupted US economy, in terms of gross annual production and loss of businesses, and led to temporary banning of mass gathering and disinfection and hygiene measures by US governments, yet the increased public awareness of influenza, rise of healthcare organizations and improved public healthcare system were the greatest impacts of influenza…

    • 362 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With the smallpox vaccine, however, smallpox was “officially wiped out in 1980” (“How”). Vaccines also protect against…

    • 293 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The medicine during the time focused exclusively on curing the patient rather than preventing disease. Vaccines for diseases such as smallpox were largely unavailable to those outside of towns, this led to…

    • 1483 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Smallpox: Variola Virus

    • 2308 Words
    • 10 Pages

    What is smallpox exactly? Smallpox is actually the nickname of the virus, the scientific name is Variola which may appear as V. major or V. minor. Variola virus is relatively stable in the natural environment. If aerosolized, it will retain its infectivity for at least several hours if not exposed to sunlight or ultraviolet light. Since the virus is two hundred and sixty by one hundred fifty nanometers and contains a molecule of double stranded DNA putatively coding for some two hundred different proteins; makes smallpox one of the largest viral genomes known which makes it especially difficult to create a synthetic copy of the virus for medical purposes.…

    • 2308 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Small Pox History

    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Introduction Smallpox is a vicious disease that once swept the globe plaguing and causing frenzy among many, even the most powerful of civilizations. Smallpox, also known as the variola virus, leaves its victims with hundreds of open sores that fill with pus and later scab over, disfiguring them and many times causing death. Coupled with a high fever, smallpox is extremely contagious as it can spread through contact with the infected individual’s saliva, coughs, sneezes or even close contact with the individual while they are talking. It became the most infectious disease in history and happens to be the only modern disease that has been completely eradicated by the advent of vaccinations in the United States. This vicious disease that once…

    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    smallpox had a major impact on human health dating back to around 10,000 BC. Hundreds of thousands of people died due to this disease and the fact that nobody knew a cure. Smallpox had a major impact on society and trade and there were not many treatments for it for a long while. So many causes, so many deaths, only one treatment. smallpox is caused by infection with the variola virus, this can be transmitted in many ways.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After two and a half years of managing to avoid war, American neutrality ended in 1917, which caused more than four million military personnel to be deployed into foreign nations. Of those four million United States’ citizens, about 110,000 of them died. However, 43,000 of those soldiers did not die in battle, but were killed silently, in the most brutal way possible; the influenza virus. This virus gave victims the symptoms of a normal head cold, except because of an overreaction of the immune system, fluid gathered in the lungs which resulted in the development of pneumonia. The H1N1 virus was known best as the Spanish Flu and even though it most likely originated in China, the first reports of the virus came from Spanish Newspapers, while…

    • 865 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Smallpox, also called variola major, was one of the world’s deadliest plagues,…

    • 1194 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays