Smallpox 1718. In 1721, Cotton Mather and colleagues provoked controversy in Boston by inoculating hundreds. In 1796, Edward Jenner, a doctor in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, rural England, discovered that immunity to smallpox could be produced by inoculating a person with material from a cowpox lesion. Cowpox is a poxvirus in the same family as variola. Jenner called the material used for inoculation vaccine, from the root word "vacca", which is Latin for cow. The procedure was much safer than variolation, and did not involve a risk of smallpox transmission. Vaccination to prevent smallpox was soon practiced all over the world. During the
1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic were critical to limiting the spread of smallpox in Canada. After the epidemic the HBC implemented a territory wide vaccination program which further reduced smallpox deaths. Unfortunately, as people entered communities with the intention of vaccinating against smallpox, they brought with them additional diseases that worked to keep mortality rates high. The epidemic would alter power structures of impacted nations. As the Assinboine and Niitsitapi did not get the opportunity for vaccination and as a result both their populations and territory shrunk considerably. The disease was particularly deadly among these people because of the denser populations. After being hit by