User talk:Subphreeky

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[edit] Welcome -- and a reply to your question

Welcome to Wikipedia. Your question is no intrusion and I'm always happy to help if I can. So, please feel free to call on me. Look forward to working with you.

Regarding your question about smallpox and the Pontiac's War incident: Human understanding of the causes and spread of disease, including smallpox, developed erratically and was often based on practical observation. The technological confirmation of micro-organisms - by Pasteur and others - was a conclusion of a long line of speculation and experiments with public health. The burning of bedding and clothing used by persons infected with smallpox, plague and other epidemic diseases dates at least to the early and mid 1600's. This was also the time when public health measures, such as drains and sewers, protected water supplies and garbage control, began to be seen in European cities. Of course, these measures had been used earlier in other cultures, including China and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman's were also the first to use innoculation -- controlled infection with a live desease agent -- as a method to temper the devastation of smallpox. Wikipedia's resident expert on this particular incident is Kevin Myers. I asked him to join our discussion, and his reply is below. Hope the information helps. WBardwin 17:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

"I will try to inoculate the bastards with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the disease myself." -- Henry Bouquet, 13 July 1763.

I'm not sure to what degree people then understood how disease was spread, but they had some notion of it, as Bouquet's letter demonstrates. And by the time of Pontiac's War, inoculation against smallpox had been practiced among the upper class in England for nearly half a century. It was also common knowledge then that if one survived smallpox, you were then immune, so presumably whoever handled the blankets had already survived the disease. --Kevin Myers 04:19, July 19, 2005 (UTC)