New clues on the history of the smallpox vaccine virus

Smallpox – simply hearing the word evokes images of countless people suffering gruesome deaths throughout recorded history. Known scientifically as variola, the virus had 30 percent mortality rate and survivors were branded with pox scars for life. For millennia, physicians often did more harm than good. Smallpox victims were bled, poked with golden needles, kept in overheated rooms while febrile, and the list goes on. At best, the treatments were uncomfortable; at worst, they killed even faster than the virus. But in the 1790s, English physician Edward Jenner used fluid from fresh pustules on the hands of young dairymaid Sarah Nelms, who had a much more mild disease called “cowpox” , to create vaccination (a word that comes from the Latin “vacca”, meaning cow). This “vaccination” replaced the “variolation”, an earlier inoculation technique that was much more dangerous. However, some believe that the virus Jenner used in his vaccination was not...