Talk:Smallpox

As the self-appointed medical expert I'm gonna go thru this with a fine-toothed comb. I'll give you time to move this to your user space if you don't want me to. User:PalMD


 * Be my guest, though if I don't speak with too much hubris, I would consider myself a sub-expert, so to speak. I have a degree in Biology specializing in microbiology and virology, so what you see in the article should be accurate, though more pedestrian. Stile4aly 17:49, 3 June 2007 (CDT)


 * I just finished reading it...it's pretty good, you're right. I thought that HG had written it.  I have to decide whether or not his edit should stand.  I translated an 18th century French text on smallpox innoculation...fascinating.  We may wish to add something about "The Grand Experiment" in which British prisoners were used to test innoculation.  It is one of the first RCTs ever done.--PalMD-yada yada 17:54, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

Smallpox and rinderpest
As the rinderpest article has been deleted, will post a comment here.

There should be some mention somewhere covering the deliberate elimination of species 'in the wild' (which might include getting rid of invasive species and Grauniad Island (sp?) etc) - what is the ethical situation, and how does this compare to eugenics; or AIDS (where the population of the world might divide into those with immunity and those without, and the genetic divide arising) etc.

Anyone want to take it on? 212.85.6.26 (talk) 15:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand that two of the varieties of polio have also been eliminated - and the third is very much reduced in its geographical extent.
 * Some diseases do vanish by non-inoculation methods - eg the 'Sweating Sickness' of the 15th century, and some varieties of the flu . 'Anna Livia (talk) 13:13, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Hygiene and smallpox
The article should have something about the view that hygiene and garlic would have cured smallpox anyway.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 01:24, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

What's in a name?
So what was Greatpox/small pox being compared to? --171.33.222.26 (talk) 16:15, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The (great) pox was (is) syphilis. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

The disappearing act.
Funny that most people firmly believe smallpox disappeared thanks to a vaccine at a time when the vaccination rates were ridiculously low and far from universal. By those standards there should be no "vaccine preventable" diseases today after decades of >90% vaccination coverage. The story of smallpox doesn't make any sense. Comment 19:52, 21 October 2015‎ 195.40.6.43

Episode 19 of People's Century gives some explanation - when smallpox had been reduced to isolated outbreaks 'all that had to be done' was immunize those close enough for the disease to be transmitted to. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 19:23, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Not convincing, if so then the same should have worked with the isolated outbreaks of all other diseases for which vaccines are used massively today with no hope of eradication whatsoever, but it doesn't. Another pending question is whether the old "smallpox" were actually presentations of smallpox virus or serious cases of chickenpox, for both clinical presentations are identical as evidenced by this 1971 WHO report where the organisation reclassified over 100 cases of smallpox in India as "chickenpox" concluding that all the Indian doctors were wriong in their diagnoses despite positive lab results for smallpox! A really weird action by the WHO that would explain the apparent eradication as simple "reclassification" of the disease.145.64.134.242 (talk) 09:58, 5 April 2019‎
 * Anyone care to answer this? (Possibly 'different types of transmission' from what I understand of such things). Anna Livia (talk) 13:17, 3 January 2023 (UTC)