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
History of smallpox This was before Jenner discovered the immunization capabilities of cowpox. However, Jesty simply performed the procedure; he did not take the discovery any further by inoculating his family with smallpox matter to see if there would be a reaction or perform any other trials. Jenner was the first to prove the effectiveness of vaccination with cowpox using experimentation. Benjamin Franklin, who had lost his own son to smallpox in 1736, made the suggestion to create a pamphlet to distribute to families explaining how to inoculate their children themselves, so as to eliminate cost as the factor in the decision to