Smallpox: Treatment & Prevention

There is no cure for smallpox. In a modern day case, a person who has been diagnosed with this fatal disease can only take an aspirin to soothe muscular pains, get a lot of bed rest, take sedatives to keep calm, and have fluids injected into the body to prevent dehydration. Smallpox is caused by a virus which is usually spread through the air and which enters the body through the mouth or nose.

The only prevention from smallpox is a vaccination that was developed by an English physician named Edward Jenner, also referred to as the "father of smallpox vaccination". Jenner started experimenting with this vaccine in 1976. Made from a virus called vaccinia, smallpox vaccination has protected approximately seventy-five percent of people in America. Until the 1970s, this vaccine was frequently distributed to everyone in the United States. This process was later abandoned because of the rapid decrease in smallpox epidemics around the world.