by three to four days, a rash appears, and is generally located on the face, the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands, and roughly six to ten days later, the rash becomes cankerous blemishes. The fever returns, and along with toxicity, initiates the next phase of smallpox, during which the pimples can become infected with bacteria. After this phase, the final recovery phase begins. During this phase, the pustules may become crusted, and very often leave scars. The fever and toxicity recede at this time. Smallpox was fatal when the infection spread to the lungs, heart, or brain. A victim could lose sight in one or both eyes, and could die when the disease spread to vital organs, such as the lungs, heart, liver, throat or brain. There is no concrete evidence as to when the disease became common. It is suspected to have infected Egypt sometime before 1500 BC, and contaminated the rest of the world after that. In Turkey in the 15th and 16th centuries, a process known as inoculation was used to try and eliminate smallpox. This, however, was not a new idea. Chinese doctors had been practicing a form of inoculation in which they had blown dust from the scabs of those with smallpox into the nostrils of those who were healthy. This process usually cause the patient to react mildly, and have a very light case of the disease, but following the mild case, have an immunity (Appendix A) to the sickness for the rest of their lives. In the early 16th century, this practice was well known in China as well as parts of Turkey, but very foreign to most Europeans and Americans. For many, the first they heard of inoculation was in a letter written by a man named Increase Mather, which told of a recent outbreak of smallpox in Turkey that had been deterred by the inoculation process. Ensuing this publication, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, poet and wife of the British ambassador to Turkey, began promoting inoculation in Great Britain. Lady Mary was a...
