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
1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic Early vaccination efforts by the Hudson's Bay Company were sporadic and unorganized during its monopoly period. Although the HBC recognized the potential of vaccination, understanding that more people ment more fur for them, there was no systematic vaccination program in place until the epidemic was well underway. Some vaccines were sent to trading posts early in the 19th Century but were left to collect dust. The smallpox infection spiked in 1780s, as persisted up to the 1837 epidemic. In what is now Canada, fur trade strengthened communities such as the Mushego Cree, Anishinabe, and Ottawa. The Mandan tribe had previously