Virology in order to immunize others. In 1717 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu observed the practice in Istanbul and attempted to popularize it in Britain, but encountered considerable resistance. In 1796 Edward Jenner developed a much safer method, using cowpox to successfully immunize a young boy against smallpox, and this practice was widely adopted. Vaccinations against other viral diseases followed, including the successful rabies vaccination by Louis Pasteur in 1886. The nature of viruses however was not clear to these researchers. In 1892, the Russian biologist Dmitry Ivanovsky used a Chamberland filter to try to isolate the bacteria that caused tobacco mosaic
Smallpox noted that, in the 8-month voyage of the First Fleet and the following 14 months there were no reports of smallpox amongst the colonists and that as smallpox has an incubation period of 10–12 days it is unlikely it was present in the first fleet, it is now known that the likely source was bottles of smallpox virus possessed by First Fleet surgeons and there actually was a report of smallpox amongst the colonists – a seaman, Jefferies. There is circumstantial evidence that smallpox was deliberately introduced to Aboriginal population. During World War II, scientists from the United Kingdom, United