Smallpox?

[jamesd at echeque.com]

    --
On 27 Sep 2001, at 6:29, Dr. Evil wrote:
> I was thinking about this some more, and I wonder if cowpox 
> still exists in the wild.  I know that all livestock in 
> developed countries receive certain vaccinations, and it 
> would be logical for cowpox/smallpox to be one of them. 
> Hmm, this also makes me wonder: if there is veterinary 
> vaccine for *pox, could it be safe and effective for 
> humans, or easily adapted for human use?  Trivia buffs: The 
> word vaccine comes from the Latin word vacca, meaning cow 
> (vache in French).

The original vaccine was based on cowpox, the nearest 
relative of small pox.  However it was insufficiently 
effective and reliable, and so was furtively replaced by a 
weakened strain of smallpox, which was grown on cows.  The 
sellers of the vaccine continued to represent it as cowpox, 
but it was in fact a mild variant of the real thing, 
smallpox.

One reason for ending routine smallpox vaccinations was fear
that the vaccine might re-evolve virulence. 

    --digsig
         James A. Donald
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