"inoculating" against smallpox in the old days

[Jeffrey Kopp]

Well, as for the guy who went around inoculating natives from a
festering cowpox pustule, he may well have been infecting some, but I
don't doubt the intent was vaccination.  The methods then were crude in
hospitals, and surely cruder on the frontier.  Cowpox is indeed a
disease itself, but a milder one than smallpox, and which once endured
usually confers immunity to the other.

As for the Black Death, while the cumulative losses in some communities
of Europe might have run that high, I understand it was generally in the
20-50% range.  But it only takes a sudden population loss of 15% to
wreak economic and social havoc.  (The word "decimate," often used to
imply near-annihilation, literally means a 10% loss--considered a
devastating rout in battle by the Romans.)

It took a few centuries for Europe to get back on its feet after the
plague; while it was horrible, the long-term effect might actually be
considered of some benefit there.  (Well, viewed from the very
comfortable distance of half a millennium since.)  The value of
labor--and subsequently, the importance of individuals, eventually
extending to acceptance of the notion of rights--made big gains after
the disaster.  Also, technology, long resisted in a labor-surplus
environment, began to take hold, beginning in the monasteries, where the
combination of their inherent industriousness, education (relative to
the outside) and the economic constraints of a cloistered life spurred
the development and use of such devices as clockwork and milling
machinery.  (Leading to things like the printing press and movable
type.)

From what I have read the losses of Native Americans to smallpox
fluctuated, from less severe figures (15-30%) where contact was more
limited (east of the Mountains), to extreme (perhaps even over 90% in
the Chinooks) where contact with Europeans was highest (as well as the
climate less forgiving).  The effects of disease, overwhelming
immigration, and conquest tragically combined to devastate the Indians. 

Curiously, while smallpox has been eradicated (perhaps the only disease
yet made extinct by human intervention), the plague is still around, and
people sometimes die of it today around the American Southwest, even
near here.  (A couple each year, on average.)  An Oregon man died of
bubonic plague just a couple of years ago, in the southwestern
mountains.  Plague fleas here aren't human fleas, but it is still
important to avoid any dead small animals out in the woods; a hungry
squirrel-flea can indeed bite you.

Regards,

Jeff

On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 19:58:15 -0800, you wrote:

>At 07:44 PM 2/2/99 -0800, David Robertson wrote:
>>LaXiyEm, kanawi-Laksta,
>>
>>I don't know a thing that'd be useful in answering Mike's question about
>>this, but a tiny anecdote:  My Salish teacher, if I recall right, at least
>>once mentioned to us about some indigenous people who somehow got the idea
>>to use thorns to inoculate against this dreaded plague -- and it worked in
>>many cases.
>>
>>How many of realize that smallpox was as bad or far worse for American
>>natives than the black plague ever was for Europeans?
>
>Well, that's a fairly subjective statement.  In some parts of Europe, the
>mortality WAS over 90%, sometimes over 95%, and the plague hit in
>successive waves, with complete social chaos and cultural breakdown in its
>wake.  50% is usually cited by demographers about the Black Death, but no
>one really knows, there being no accurate record-keeping in those days.
>
>The deadliest of the plagues to hit the Northwest wasn't smallpox.  It was
>"the mortality", the unknown disease that was introduced by an irate Boston
>trader against the peoples of the Lower Columbia and the Lower Fraser in
>the early 1820s.  The fatality rate there is also unknown, but appears to
>have been over 95%.  Apparently it was a hemorrhagic fever of some kind
>(like Ebola or the deadliest super-influenzas), and was somehow brought in
>from the tropics.......
>
>Has me wondering what the infection rate among natives in the frontier era
>for malaria was; or whether that mostly afflicted the colonists?