Smallpox, National Library of Medicine
	Smallpox is another of  the fearsome diseases that our ancestors experienced. Smallpox is a very contagious viral disease, with consequences that were often deadly or disfiguring.  Its characteristic symptoms are high fever, quickened pulse, intense headache, vomiting, pain, and eruptions of dark red spots on the third or fourth day that turn into pimples and pustules.  These distinctive symptoms make smallpox easy to identify in the historical reports.
	Charleston suffered from major smallpox epidemics in 1711, 1738, 1760. Because Charleston was a major port city, most smallpox outbreaks began when a ship with infected passengers arrived. The city’s population was too small to sustain smallpox as an endemic disease, so all susceptible persons were at risk during the periodic epidemics.
	In the 1720's, variolation, or smallpox inoculation, was introduced as a preventive measure. A healthy person had pus from an infected person inserted into a small incision.  The result was usually a milder form of the disease that left the person with immunity, but death resulted for 1% to 5% of cases. This compared with a death rate of 10% to 50% for smallpox acquired naturally.  The practice of variolation also contributed to the spread of the disease in many cases.
	John Duffy. (1953) Epidemics in Colonial America.  Louisiana State University Press.