HLTB21H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Traditional Medicine, Cowpox, Antibody
Document Summary
Smallpox spread from village to village throughout the yucatan. Smallpox had arrived in peru by land in 1526, killing most of the inca population. Smallpox was considered an old world disease and the new world had never been exposed to it, so they did not have immunity to it. Smallpox was at one time one of the most devastating of all human diseases. No one really knows when smallpox began to infect humans: people thought that it came from another infectious agent from one of the pox like diseases from domesticated animals. The best evidence of smallpox was found in three egyptian mummies: pharaoh ramses, his face, neck, shoulders are covered with scars, pockmarks. Smallpox spread form west to china: trade caravans helped the spread of smallpox. It was also known in greece and rome but was not a major health problem until the plague of antonine.
