Dealing with the global covid19 pandemic, it seems like kind of a an opportune moment to look back at the history of other infectious diseases and i wanted to talk about smallpox because there are many parallels as Youll Notice over the course of this talk between smallpox and the coronavirus and how societies dealt with it. Also a smallpox is ultimately a Success Story because its the it has been eradicated. So in these days when were all struggling to stay vigilant to deal with the hardships struggles and deaths that the globe is experience during coronavirus. I hope that this history of smallpox gives us a little hope about what the future might hold. So todays talk. Were going to explore the history of smallpox and how humans beat it. Um, so lets go ahead and move to our first slide slides are not advancing. There we go. There we go. All right, as i say throughout this Talk Youll probably notice some parallels between our current. Pandemic of Covid19 And Smallpox now the story of smallpox, which is called the scourge of the species. It is a highly contagious and deadly viral disease that had been plaguing humankind for millennia it is very deadly with Mortality Rates usually ranging somewhere between 20 and 60 percent. So on average about one third of people who were infected with smallpox died. Those are Mortality Rates are specially high with young children. And the twentieth century alone smallpox killed an estimated 300 million people it gives you a sense of its scope and if you were lucky enough to survive smallpox you are often left with disfiguring scars very often. Your also left blind about a third of the people who caught smallpox ended up going blind and as you can see from these two images one of the characteristics symptoms of smallpox. Are a series of first pustules and that then dry to scabs that cover the body particularly around the and eyes but then down across the rest of the body, so its a really pretty horrific disease yet. As i said, its also a major public Health Victory for the world because it is the only disease the only human disease that has been completely eradicated and the fight against smallpox the fight too eradicated helped establish certain scientific and health protocols that have been applied to fighting other infectious diseases like measles the Flu Coronavirus and so forth. So it really is a very important story in the larger history of the fight against infectious diseases. So lets look at the history of smallpox a little bit. We dont know for sure, but we think its been around since at least 10,000 before the common era. So as i say its been around for thousands and thousands of years it appeared in ancient egypt at the top left of the screen. Youll see the mummified skull of ramses the fifth one of the pharaohs of ancient egypt and his mummy shows the scars of smallpox. So we think that he may have died from that disease. Theres also evidence of smallpox in europe by around the year 500 it appears in ancient chinese texts from the 14th century ancient indian texts from the seventh century and from those various places smallpox. Spread around the world. Its very much a story of human movement because smallpox is infectious and it passes from person to person when people moved around the globe. They took smallpox with them. So when various countries went to war or went on exploratory expedition expeditions or traveling the globe often took smallpox with them and because of that smallpox was incredibly devastating in the americas North And South americas which really hadnt experienced smallpox until spanish and portuguese and later other European Explorers and settlers came to the americas and brought smallpox with them and because the indigenous inhabitants of the americas had never experienced smallpox before they had no immunity to it and so smallpox really decimated. The native populations of North And South America Smallpox helped contribute to the fall of the aztec empire in mexico and the incan empire in peru it also because it decimated probably at least a third of indigenous populations it kind of laid the groundwork for Colonization And Settlement of the new world. So as Smallpox Spread around the globe it continued to afflict populations through the centuries up until 1980 when it was eradicated when smallpox was. Virtually gone essentially gone from the face of the earth. So how was it eradicated . How did humans slay what was also also called the spotted monster. Thats what were going to turn to now and there are two phases to key phases in the fight for smallpox. The first part has to do with very elation and very elation is a form of inoculation using the Smallpox Virus. And this is a technique. We dont know for sure when it originated who originated it, but we think that the chinese were using it perhaps as early as the first century definitely by the 10th century of variolation was also used practiced in asia in the middle East And Africa by the 1700s and what people who used variolation noticed was that if you survived smallpox. You would never get infected again by smallpox. And so they started. Inoculating people by taking samples of smallpox usually scraping out a bit of liquid from a pustule or scraping off a bit of a dried scab and then inserting it into the body of the patient you wanted to inoculate either by cutting into the skin and then inserting the smallpox under the skin or by inhaling it through the nose and generally, you would take the Smallpox Sample from someone who had a very mild case of the disease because the patient who is inoculated would develop smallpox and the hope was that if you started with a mild case of the disease that the patient would similarly have a mild case. Than survive it and then be immune to smallpox now. A didnt really understand. Virology, you know, what a virus was how immunity was built up in the system by reacting to the presence of that virus in the body and developing antibodies and so forth. They didnt understand those until modern medical developments in the late 19th and 20th centuries, but through Observation And Practice they they recognize that variolation was a way to help protect people against smallpox as i say asia the middle East Africa had been practicing very elation by the 1700s, but it wasnt known in europe until the 80 early 18th century and the woman pictured on the right side of the Screen Lady Mary Ortley Montague was a key figure in transmitting knowledge of the practice of variolation to europe. She was a noble woman a poet and also the wife of the british ambassador to the ottoman empire and when her family was. Um stationed in Constantinople And Presentday Istanbul And Turkey she learned about the practice of variolation and she had as a young woman suffered smallpox survived it, but she was terrified of her children catching it so she learned about very elation and in 1718 decided to have her son inoculated. Couple years later in 1721. She was back in england and she started telling her influential friends doctors scientists and even royalty and so she helped spread the word about variolation convinced the royal family to get inoculated and became a lifelong advocate for the practice of variolation. So beginning in the 18th century the practice of variolations spreads throughout europe and then from europe it moves to the british colonies in america. And a really interesting. Piece of the history of variulation involves an enslaved Man Named Onsomas he we dont really know much about his life. This is just a generic painting of a black person. Its not meant to be a portrait of onsomas. We know very little about him except that he was kidnapped captured from africa and brought to boston by 1706. He was enslaved by the Reverend Cotton Mather puritan ministers, perhaps best known for his involvement in the Salem Witch trials. Um, well on thomas known about variolation from africa. So when there was a Smallpox Epidemic in Boston Onsemist told Cotton Mather about the practice. So here we have an instance of technical medical knowledge being transported from africa to america through the international Slave Trade enslaved africans brought. Other knowledge as well certain farming practices ironworking technologies and so forth. Well, they also helped bring variolation to the americas and through the knowledge that Cotton Mather gained from onsomas. They were able to help Combat And Outbreak and epidemic of smallpox in boston in 1721 and through the success of that Word Spread throughout the colonies and the practice of very elation followed benjamin. Franklin was an advocate several Virginia Founding fathers were as well including Thomas Jefferson traveled to philadelphia as a young man in 1766 to get inoculated by variolation. George washington he was a Smallpox Survivor he had caught smallpox at age 19 while he was traveling in barbados. He recognized the strategic value of variolation pretty keenly during the revolutionary war after the american forces were soundly defeated during an attack on quebec and a large reason for their defeat was that so many soldiers had been either killed or laid out by smallpox. Recognizing that problem George Washington declared in 1777 that all soldiers in the continental army should be inoculated by variolation. Now the relation was a very controversial practice pretty much from the beginning and both Europe And America and you see pro and antiverulation factions develop because variolation involved infecting. A healthy patient with smallpox people who were opposed to variolation were afraid that that patient would die from smallpox. They were also afraid that the person who was infected the person who was inoculated would in fact others in the community and lead to a smallpox outbreak. Also the Variolation Process because youre transferring biological matter from one person to another there was a risk that you could transfer other diseases as well. And again people didnt understand the biology of that but they but through their observation they notice that some diseases in addition to smallpox. Were passed along by variolation diseases such as syphilis and other things and some also opposed variolation on religious grounds. They felt any attempt to stop a Godgiven Disease was a counter to gods will so there there was a lot of controversy surrounding the practice of variolation even though its Mortality Rates were far lower than if you had smallpox without variolation 2 Mortality Rate from the smallpox that you got through Vari Elation versus about 30 Mortality Rate if you just developed smallpox naturally, so the people who supported variolation they very much embraced its its protective measures that led to lower Mortality Rates. Now we see the controversy over inoculation erupt in norfolk, virginia in 1768 and 69. There were actually riots. Im not making this up and during this period there were small epidemics of smallpox in williamsburg in yorktown. So citizens of norfolk were on edge about the epidemic coming to their town. Well one resident a dr. Archibald campbell he decided to engage the services of dr. Josh. To inoculate Campbells Family and neighbors and he probably learned about Dahli Ash through, you know contacts in the middle medical community also through an article that dr. Del yash had published in the Virginia Gazette elongating details about the disease and also hyping his own services as an experienced inoculator. Um so dr. Campbell hired dalyash to inoculate himself as Family And Group of their neighbors. Well other citizens were very upset about this because they were afraid that the Inoculation Process would lead to an outbreak of smallpox the antivaxers. Im going to use a modern term the antivaxxers tried to get the local magistrates to stop these plans. The magistrates didnt want to step in so these antivaxxers they basically fired up a mob that marched to dr. Campbells home broke windows said his house on fire. They did the same to the home of dr. Dahliyesh. They also forced Campbells Family to march off to the Pest House the kind of Quarantine Hospital that was set up to deal with smallpox outbreaks and tensions erupted the following year as well. So we had two riots in norfolk involving the same group of people in 1968 and 69 and charges were filed by both the pro and anti Inoculation Side cases were tied up in courts for years interestingly when he was a young lawyer Thomas Jefferson represented the probe. Vaccination party in this well these riots also led virginias general assembly the house of burgesses to pass a law in 1770 that prohibited inoculation unless you got a special permit from the local magistrate and that effectively stopped. The Inoculation Process in virginia in 1777, the general assembly revised that law to allow inoculation if the majority of your neighbors within a Twomile Radius agreed to allow you to inoculate and also if you maintain proper quarantine, so these debates in virginia led to legislating over the the status of Inoculation And Ability to practice variolation. So now lets pull back to a broader picture back from virginia and what was going on in norfolk in the late 1760s to the World Stage again, and here we come to part two of how humans, eradicated smallpox and this brings us to vaccination. Vaccination unlike variolation which used a bit of the Smallpox Virus and inserted that into the body of the patient. So that patient would build up. Immunity to Smallpox Vaccination was a form of inoculation that used the Cowpox Virus rather than the Smallpox Virus. And the Cowtox Virus that is related to smallpox. Theyre all part of the orthopox virus family. But Cow Pox is a name suggests generally only manifests in cows and when humans get calpox, its generally not deadly and your symptoms are much milder than they would be with with smallpox. Theyre two different Viruses Cowpox is called Vaccinea Smallpox is called variola. Now an English Country doctor developed the practice of vaccination using the Cowpox Virus, so hes a key figure in this part of stamping out smallpox. He as a Country Doctor noticed that women who worked as Dairy Maids as milkmaids. They generally didnt get smallpox, so that got him to thinking about taking the practice of variolation, but instead of using smallpox using cowpox. And its a story that involves a cow a dairymade and a gardeners son. Sounds like a little bit like the cast of you know, baroque first or something like that, but dr, Edward Jenner he collected the Cowpox Virus from excuse me. No, he one of his Cows Blossom a cow by the name of blossom. That cow transmitted Cow Pox to a dairymade named Sarah Nelms and then dr. Jenner took a sample of the Cowpox Virus from the pustules from the poxes that sarah developed transferred the cowpox to his subject to his patient a young Boy Named James phipps, and theres a modern image kind of imagining what that scene looked like. And this happened on May 14th 1796 dr. Jenner conducted this experiment with his process. He waited. Until james came down with cal parks, but he had a very mild case of it and he fully recovered and then in july of 1776 fips infected james with the actual Smallpox Virus. James did not come down with smallpox. So jenner concluded that james was now immune to smallpox and again james didnt necessarily understand the virology of it. But because these two Viruses Cowpox in smallpox are related cowpox provides crossover immunity to smallpox in humans and with further experiments jenner was able to to perfect his practice and published his findings in a book in 1798 that started to spread the word about this new practice of nation a quick note about the Term Vaccination it comes from vaccinia, which is the latin word for the Cowpox Virus and that itself is derived from the latin word for cow, which is vaca. And the way ill be using it Today Vaccination is distinct from variolation because vaccination involves immunizing someone with the Cowpox Virus rather than Smallpox Virus. And until the late 19th Century Vaccination as a term was used specifically to describe. Immunization with cowpox, but in the late 19th century that term became applied more broadly to all kinds of immunization products, but for these purposes in context of smallpox, im going to be using it to describe vaccination with the Cowpox Virus. Now in his 1798 book which is titled an inquiry into the causes and effects of the Varioli Vaccine Dr. Jenner outlined his process. He also expressed. Hope quote that the annihilation of the smallpox the most dreaded scourge of the human species must be the final result of this practice. And because of his experimentation and his codification of this process of vaccination, dr. Jenner is widely recognized today as one of the founding fathers if you will and the founding fathers of the fields of immunology and his discovery would have a profound impact on the world as the practice of vaccination started to spread. It also churned up some of the same controversy that surrounded variolation people met this practice with the same Skepticism Concern about introducing infection into a healthy patient. You can see that some artists took the fear of or exploited the fear around vaccination for satirical purposes. This is a satirical cartoon from 1802 that shows dr. Jenner standing in the center and inoculating a woman and his other patients whove already received the vaccine are manifesting all kinds of crazy symptoms. You see they have cow heads and and other parts of cows bodies first thing out of their limbs out of their nose on their face. Know bursting out of their body. So this Cartoon Artist is playing upon peoples fears and skepticism of this new practice of vaccination. Despite the controversy many people did. Support the practice of vaccination and generous ideas started to spread beyond england into europe and also to america and a Boston Doctor Benjamin waterhouse who is a professor at harvard. He was a key figure in bringing the practice of vaccination to america dr. Jenner who originated the vaccine he passed it on to one of his fellow doctors dr. Hagarth who then passed it on to the american Doctor Benjamin Waterhouse and waterhouse brought it back to boston and started to not only practice vaccination but to spread the news about it and to share samples of cow hawks with others Thomas Jefferson, these two men new other and dr. Waterhouse convinced jefferson to try vaccination in virginia. That kind of a its somewhat unfortunate aspect of this is that jefferson agreed to do so, and he tested it out on three of his enslaved people. You know, he took them as his guinea pigs for the vaccination of the based on that Success Jefferson ended up in a vaccinating more than 200 people including members of his family his neighbors and his enslaved workers. Jefferson who had been a proponent of variolation became just as strong and advocate of Vaccination And Spread word of the practice throughout virginia and also to others while he was in Washington Dc is president. And just to give you a sense of Jeffersons Admiration for dr. Jenner. He wrote to dr. Jenner. Saying to him yours is the comfortable reflection that mankind can never forget that you lived. Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome smallpox had existed and by you has been extirpated. That would not come true until later in the twentieth century, but already in 1806 jefferson recognized the profound impact that the Smallpox Vaccination would have in wiping out what had been such a scourge on the human race. Now by the 1840s vaccination had largely replaced variolation and doctors started carrying the tools for vaccination as a standard part of their medical kits various communities set up vaccination clinics throughout the 19th century. AntiVaccination Efforts persisted in 1879 the Antivaccination Society of america was established and ran various efforts to try to stop communities from setting up these clinics from mandating vaccination. There were lots of debates about whether vaccination should be compulsory such debates when all the way to the supreme court which in 1905 up how the constitutionality of mandatory vaccination laws passed by states that the court said you could do it if it was for public health so as despite any. Opposition Vaccination Efforts really started to explode in the twentieth century. They ramped up especially as technological developments in the Production And Delivery of the vaccine made the whole process much more efficient and here on the slide. You just see a couple of artifacts showing how widespread vaccination was becoming heres from the 1930s a Chicago Department of Health Poster reminding people to get vaccinated the photograph shows federal employees getting their Smallpox Vaccination. So and by the 1940s, Virginia And Other States required that students have vaccination before they were allowed to enter school. So we see more and more and getting a Smallpox Vaccination subset by 8 1952 smallpox was eradicated in the United States following year was also eradicated in europe due to the wide Scale Vaccination efforts and public health officials also decided to take the campaign global and the World Health Organization. It started to do that in the 1950s, but it really committed to these efforts in 1967 to a global eradication. Eradication campaign now in 1967 the disease was still present in 31 countries, and it was killing an estimated two million people a year. So it was still a major. Global Health Problem even though it was starting to be eradicated in some parts of the world. Well as a result of that massive campaign. 1977 saw the last natural case of smallpox a man named Ali Mao Mullen in somalia caught it he survived but hes the last known case of someone who naturally caught smallpox after his ordeal. In 1980 the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated now smallpox is still the subject of medical interest, you know, even though it has been eradicated, you know the world cheered everyone patted themselves on the backs this this horrible that had killed tens of millions of people over the course of thousands of years of history had been wiped off the face of the planet. Its still a subject of medical interest particularly in the context of biological Warfare And Terrorism their fears that surviving samples of the disease if they get into the wrong hands if they somehow get out of their secure locations, they could be weaponized and turned against the human race or or create a new pandemic because people are no longer regularly getting Smallpox Vaccinations. So people are not immune to it anymore by international agreement. There are only two tourism the Smallpox Virus in the world one and the in the us at the centers for Disease Control and prevention in atlanta and another at an analogous organization in russia. Theres still testing going on with new vaccines again, just in the event that worst Case Scenario happens and somehow smallpox gets reintroduced into the world. I know for a few more minutes before you open it up to q a want to turn to a few artifacts in the vmhc collections that are related to the history of smallpox. We we dont have a lot but we do have images. About the introduction of the vaccine and the controversy and skepticism. It was met with these are analogous to some of the to the satirical cartoon. I showed you and in the lower, right which is a french print the triumph of the smallpox. You see the speckled monster shown as this female kind of Sea Monster Type figure covered with the distinctive red spots that were characteristic of smallpox. We have images related to the fight against smallpox the treatment of it. Heres a picture of a hospital in london that was constructed for quarantining of smallpox patients and the delivery of the Vaccine Postcard at lower right shows a Vaccination Effort at Camp Lee here in virginia as soldiers are lined up out the door waiting to get their jab. We have items such as this one in the collection, which is a page from a Photo Album with portraits of maryland volunteers who served in the confederate army and the one page has has their photos the second page gives notes about the fate of the men pictured these maryland volunteers and the called man was John Craig Lake and as the person who kept this album noted that he died from smallpox in 1864, even though both federal and confederate armies tried to require vaccination. They didnt always have the means to deliver on that requirement. So smallpox continue to ravage both armies during the civil war. And the twentieth century we see that if you wanted to travel internationally in addition to packing your passport you needed to take a certificate of vaccination such as this one that belonged to lugwell kimbrough and the yellow document is his international certificate of vaccination and it indicates that in february 1960. He got his Smallpox Vaccination. Thats a lot of letters in which virginians talk about their the way the various ways in which they experience smallpox in this particular letter. Its from a confederate soldier named william wyatt. He was writing to mr. And mrs. Sam Baker And Hanover county. He was in station in georgia. He wrote this letter to them in november 1862 in which he talks about how the smallpox was scattered through the country by soldiers returning from the army. And i was vaccinated yesterday though. It may be too late to do any good for i may have with it somewhere on the road for i met and traveled with a great many six soldiers. I shall be uneasy for several weeks. So hes expressing his fear that he himself might come down with smallpox because he was traveling around with with soldiers moving from place to place and he got exposed to smallpox. He was vaccinated buddy was hes not sure sure he was vaccinated in time. This is a letter that i really resonates with some of the current debates. Were having about mask mandates about getting the Coronavirus Vaccine and so forth. This letter is a draft of a letter to an editor from a Doctor Robert john preston. It was an abingdon, virginia. He wrote this in 1876. He wanted a newspaper to publish this letter which made in very strenuous terms the argument for vaccinating and dr. Preston wrote. This is a loathsome disease and the appeals here to humanity are often loud and strong and the criminal neglect appalling. Hes talking about officials who wont mandate vaccination. Are our public authorities sufficiently aware of their Duty And Responsibility under the law in these cases and are they sufficiently prompt and energetic in putting into effect the means to prevent needless suffering and death. We think not hes kind of expressing his Frustration And Distrust with with local authorities. The final object is a letter from William Massey. He was writing from richmond to his father Henry Massey in charlottesville this letter dated january 29th, 1876. It included a little piece of paper which you can see on the right side of the screen. That was that was fold it up and pin to the inside of the letter and when his father opened the letter and open this little enclosure. He would have found this a Smallpox Scab and william wrote to his father saying that he basically was sending his father a scab so that his father could inoculate members of the Family And William wrote to his father henry. Harris says the peace i enclose the scab is perfectly fresh and was taken from an infants arm yesterday, but that you must let him know whether it takes and if it does not he will send you another scam continues dr. Harris says the enclosed scab will vaccinate 12 persons, but if you want more you must send for it, i will pin this to the letter so that you cannot lose it as you did before actually much of the Letter William is expressing frustration with his because he had sent an earlier sample and his dad lost it. So william is very, um adamantly, you know telling his father dont lose this one. Im pinning it to the letter that cant happen. So this was a scab that william got from someone who had developed cowpox at mild form of a related virus to smallpox and he was sending it so that the scab could be used as the basis for vaccinating his his relatives in charlottesville. Now for those of you who are long time visitors to the Virginia Museum of history culture, if you saw an exhibition we had on view in 2011 called bizarre bits. You would have seen this letter in the little Smallpox Scab on display. This is part of an exhibition we did about kind of unusual items we have in the collection and i think a scabs sent along with the letter to be used for vaccinating against smallpox certainly classifies as a bizarre bit. Well and employ the cdc the centers for Disease Control and prevention happened to be visiting the museum in may of 2011 and he saw this scab and he was concerned that if the scam was somehow still infectious and if it was a Smallpox Scab that it could it could create a public health emergency. So this Cdc Employee notified his his bosses and they sent representative down to the vmhc and and i wasnt at the museum at the time, but i kind of imagine it like the scene from the et when you know, these hazmat suited goons come sweeping into the museum covering everything with with plastic and wearing their their protective Gear Biohazard suits and so forth it wasnt actually like that. Thats just how i imagined it in my mind, but the Cdc Staff they to the museum. They took the scab off exhibition they confiscated it which they have the authority to do for an infectious disease like smallpox and they took it back to their labs in atlanta. They were just wearing gloves and a Lab Coat not fullfledged hazmat suits, but they did test the scab and they found that it contained the virus used for vaccination for vaccination. So it contained the cowpox not the Smallpox Virus nevertheless just to be absolutely safe. They did irradiate the scab. Just to kill anything that might be lingering in it. And this is how the museum got it back from the cvc. We got it back in this little plastic tube. So its back in our collection in storage. We store it along with the letter the original letter from William Massey that he sent to his father along with the original scab in the hopes that he would protect his own family against smallpox. So that is the end of my formal remarks on the history of smallpox and the ways in which humans were able to stamp out to eradicate this deadly and devastating disease. So im happy to take your questions again, please add your questions into either facebook or youtube your platform and let me turn to. Your questions i have a question. It is my understanding that viruses were not known specifically in the 18th century. So use of that word is a modern usage. And and yes, thats correct as i mentioned, you know people from observing knew that you could pass diseases like the bubonic plague like smallpox, like other diseases. They got transmitted from human to human, but they didnt understand the medic science behind it. It wasnt until later in the 19th century with the development of Germ Theory with the development of a, you know, that could look at these pathogens on a on an genomic and anatomical level. Did they really understand how a virus works, but i was using our modern understanding of virus. Just just for Clarity Sake here. So thank you for that question. Another question. How did the dairymade get the Cow Pox . Well, milkmaids and people who worked closely with cows would often pick up cowpox from the cows themselves like smallpox Cow Pox is a an infectious disease it can jump from cow to human cowpox can smallpox can smallpox is limited just to humans but because Smallpox And Cowpox are related. The Cowpox Vaccination provided cross immunity for smallpox. So presumably sarah knows the Dairy Maid that dr. Jenner used in his experiments. She caught it just simply from her her Daytoday Work for being in close proximity with cows milking them sending them out them out to pasture and so forth. Lets see. Questions about the Massey Letter the Massey Story did massey ever use the scab to inoculate his family, and were not sure you know, because we have the scab the suggestion is maybe he didnt use it, but we cant be sure because maybe it was a larger scab and he scraped off part of it and got what he needed to inoculate the other members of his family. We just dont know we dont have the records that tell us one way or another what what happened with the massey family, although they didnt you know around this period there werent any who died of smallpox, so perhaps indeed they did use parts of the scab but enough of it survived to come down to us to be preserved in our collections with this letter. Lets see are there different variants of smallpox like there are for covid19. If so was the Cowpox Vaccination effective against all the variants . Yes, there are. And i should have prefaced this entire talk with a caveat that im not a medical doctor. I i dont have that level of medical expertise if there are any doctors in the audience who who want to chive in with maybe more specific and precise answers. Please do but i do know that there are two variations of variola, which is the Smallpox Vaccination. Theres a variola major and a variola minor and the variola major leads to much more severe outbreak of the disease much more severe symptoms higher probability of death. Whereas variola minor causes much more mild forms of smallpox. So there are two versions of of the Smallpox Virus and the vaccination based on the Cowpox Virus is effective against both of those. Lets see. There there is another question that i im sorry. I just dont have the medical expertise to answer its someone is asking if the vaccine for Chicken Pox is to the smallpox vaccine. I dont know genetically if smallpox is related to chickenpox. You know, i know Smallpox And Cowpox are theyre both orthopax viruses, but i dont know if chickenpox fits into that or if its another species of virus entirely, but i do know that the general premise of how vaccinations work that you infect a healthy patient with a virus that prompts the response from the immune system that then builds up immunity to protect the patient against that virus. I know that that basic concept of vaccination that basic process has also been used in the in the chickenpox vaccine. I just dont know if those two viruses are. Genetically or biologically related all right, i think. I think those are all the questions weve gotten. I hope that looking at the history of smallpox. I hope you found some. Learn some interesting things not only about the the disease of smallpox and the ways in which it was eradicated, but i hope you also found interesting that many parallels to our current situation of dealing with a highly infectious disease at the time of a global pandemic and i know that the Coronavirus Vaccines are controversial for some of the same reasons that the smallpox vaccines were regardless of your position on that. I hope that you all stay healthy and well and that maybe you know a future curator 20 years or so from now will be able to give a similar talk