Variolation shortly after variolation began to outweigh the benefits of the procedure. From the 1760s, a number of individuals, including John Fewster, Peter Plett, Benjamin Jesty, and particularly Edward Jenner, were interested in the use of material from cowpox, an animal infection, to protect against smallpox. In 1796, Jenner vaccinated James Phipps, did more vaccinations in 1798, and was the first to publish evidence that cowpox protected against smallpox, was safer than variolation, and that his vaccine could be maintained by arm-to-arm transfer. The use of variolation soon began to decline as the smallpox vaccine became widely used and its benefits
Smallpox and pharynx. The virus can be transmitted throughout the course of the illness, but this happened most frequently during the first week of the rash, when most of the skin lesions were intact. Infectivity waned in 7 to 10 days when scabs formed over the lesions, but the infected person was contagious until the last smallpox scab fell off. Smallpox was highly contagious, but generally spread more slowly and less widely than some other viral diseases, perhaps because transmission required close contact and occurred after the onset of the rash. The overall rate of infection was also affected by the