History of smallpox In the late 1770s, during the American Revolutionary War, smallpox returned once more and killed thousands. Peter Kalm in his "Travels in North America", described how in that period, the dying Indian villages became overrun with wolves feasting on the corpses and weakened survivors. Smallpox was also used as a weapon by the British. In 1799, the physician Valentine Seaman administered the first smallpox vaccine in the United States. He gave his children a smallpox vaccination using a serum acquired from Edward Jenner, the British physician who invented the vaccine from fluid taken from cowpox lesions. Though vaccines were misunderstood
1947 New York City smallpox outbreak Bar had developed a fever and pronounced rash. He was admitted to Bellevue Hospital, but because of the rash was transferred three days later to Willard Parker Hospital, a communicable disease hospital also in Manhattan. On admission to Willard Parker, the differential diagnosis was drug reaction (since Le Bar had reported taking proprietary headache powders and aspirin), erythema multiforme, Kaposi's varicelliform eruption, and smallpox. However, because Le Bar had a smallpox vaccination scar, an atypical rash, and no history of exposure, smallpox was immediately ruled out. A biopsy of the skin lesions did not reveal the Guarnieri bodies characteristic of