Jefferson’s Impact on the Spread of the Smallpox

Vaccine

Alex ClagettHistory Seminar 395

Overview

• Thesis

• Historical Context

• Key Points of Paper

• Conclusions

• Success and Struggles with Research

• Sources

Thesis

• Thomas Jefferson worked with other scientists and doctors of the eighteenth century to publicize the positive results of inoculation, in order to urge other Americans to accept the vaccine, and, together with Benjamin Waterhouse and Edward Jenner, to advance the knowledge about the disease and find the cure to smallpox.  

Historical Context

• Outbreaks in Colonial America • During the period of 1699 to 1799 there were

12 Smallpox epidemics in the city of Boston. • Mortality rate• Smallpox had a thirty to fifty percent fatality rate.

• How was Smallpox prevented • Isolation • Not an effective form of prevention

Smallpox

• Spread through direct contact with the virus• Air droplets

• Symptoms of Smallpox• raised rash on the face and forehead, sores filled

with pustules on inside of the mouth, fatigue, fever, headache, and sore throat

• How does Smallpox actually kill?• Evades auto immune responses and causes vital

organs to shut down

• Inoculation

Thomas Jefferson’s involvement

• 1782 – Jefferson undergoes inoculation

• Why is he interested in finding a cure for Smallpox?

• His active support for the smallpox vaccine• Vaccinated his family, slaves and neighbors

• Jefferson acted as a facilitator of the vaccine and information regarding Smallpox • Benjamin Waterhouse • First person in America to obtain the cowpox vaccine

from Edward Jenner

Jefferson’s Improvement to the Smallpox Vaccine

• Jefferson sent live matter from Monticello to Dr. Gannt in Washington, DC• Dr. Gannt performs two trials which are

unsuccessful

• Jefferson wrote to Waterhouse asking for another shipment of the virus. But this time he requested that Waterhouse, “Put the matter into a phial of the smallest size, well corked, & immersed in a larger one filled with water & well corked.”

Success and Struggles

• Wide array of correspondences

• Use of online journals – JSTOR• JSTOR allowed me to find multiple journal

articles and book reviews. The journal article that gave me the most information regarding the historical context of Smallpox in the 18th century was “Boston’s Historic Smallpox Epidemic” by Amalie Kass, 2012 article.

Sources

• Thomas Jefferson: Scientist by Edwin T Martin was used as reference and led me to many primary source documents

• JSTOR allowed me to find multiple journal articles and book reviews. The journal article that gave me the most information regarding the historical context of Smallpox in the 18th century was “Boston’s Historic Smallpox Epidemic” by Amalie Kass, 2012 article.

• Jefferson’s involvement with the epidemic of smallpox and his encouragement of the vaccine are found in Byrd Leavell’s article “Thomas Jefferson and Smallpox Vaccination.” Leavell gives an analysis of primary documents which were mostly letters, he mentions that Malone does not go into too much detail about Jefferson’s role in finding a vaccine for smallpox.