Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. The crowd
Speaker 1: jeered and laughed at the old woman as she took
Speaker 1: the stand in the Salem courtroom. She tried to please them,
Speaker 1: her life depended on it, after all. Speaking in her
Speaker 1: native tongue, Gaelic and goody, Glover recited the Lord's Prayer perfectly.
Speaker 1: Her accuser, a Puritan minister named Cotton Mather, slammed his
Speaker 1: fist down on the courtroom stand. Gaelic was the devil's tongue,
Speaker 1: he told the courtroom. He turned to Glover and demanded
Speaker 1: that she try again. She knew the odds were against
Speaker 1: her just by being an Irish immigrant to the English
Speaker 1: bread colonists. The Irish were inferior, a bunch of know nothings.
Speaker 1: That wasn't all, though, being an elderly Catholic woman made
Speaker 1: them just like her even more. Glover searched the crowd
Speaker 1: for a shred of empathy. Finding none, she recited the
Speaker 1: prayer again, this time in perfect Latin. Once more, Mather
Speaker 1: denounced her. If she couldn't speak the prayer in perfect English,
Speaker 1: he stated to the crowd that it proved without a
Speaker 1: doubt that she was a witch. Her innocence or guilt
Speaker 1: rested on her ability to speak a language that she
Speaker 1: wasn't very good at. Her testimony hadn't been good enough.
Speaker 1: She had told the truth, but the children had lied.
Speaker 1: It had all started with the Goodwinds, one of the
Speaker 1: families she earned a meager living from as a laundress.
Speaker 1: Glover had just put fresh linens on the line to
Speaker 1: dry when Martha, the family's eldest child, ripped the sheets
Speaker 1: from the clothes line, dirtying them. That wasn't what Mather
Speaker 1: called the incident, though he had said the child had
Speaker 1: been tempted by the devil. Angry, Blover had fallen back
Speaker 1: on her native language, telling the spoiled girl off it's
Speaker 1: never pleasant being caught. After the scolding, the girl ran
Speaker 1: off to tell her parents that the old woman had
Speaker 1: cursed her for nothing more than a harmless prank. Soon after,
Speaker 1: Martha began having fits what Mather described as diseases of astonishment.
Speaker 1: Before long, four other Goodwin children suffered the same affliction
Speaker 1: as their older sister. They complained that their eyes, tongue,
Speaker 1: and teeth hurt. They cried out, swearing Glover was breaking
Speaker 1: their necks, legs, feet and toes. Of course, when their
Speaker 1: parents examined them, the children claimed the witch delighted in
Speaker 1: healing them and then breaking their bones over and over.
Speaker 1: The Goodwins summoned a doctor. Finding nothing, he agreed the
Speaker 1: cause must be witchcraft. Witnesses quickly came forward to did
Speaker 1: seeing Glover curse the children with their own eyes. Mother
Speaker 1: being the local minister, had been brought in to investigate,
Speaker 1: and he quickly declared the old woman a witch. Glover
Speaker 1: was promptly arrested and interrogated. Each time she told the truth,
Speaker 1: they insisted she was lying. Members of the community told
Speaker 1: investigators they always knew something was different about her. They
Speaker 1: didn't like her religious beliefs, nor did they like her broke.
Speaker 1: They said she was confrontational and surly, but all she
Speaker 1: had done was speak normally. They had mistaken her enthusiasm
Speaker 1: and the harshness of the Gaelic language as anger. The
Speaker 1: Catholic saints she worshiped were seen as demons. The people
Speaker 1: in the courtroom, many dressed in their Sunday best, watched
Speaker 1: as mother shouted at Glover, demanding that she recite the
Speaker 1: Lord's Prayer in English. She spoke slowly, doing her best.
Speaker 1: She almost made it to the end. For stuttering, the
Speaker 1: crowd gasped, and, knowing that her moment of hesitation was
Speaker 1: the final proof in a verdict that had already made
Speaker 1: Glover Fell silent, they sentenced her to death by hanging,
Speaker 1: and on November six, a violent crowd gathered to watch.
Speaker 1: They yelled and threw things at her. The executor demanded
Speaker 1: she tell them the names of other witches. Unable to
Speaker 1: do so, they hanged her. Pleased that justice had been served,
Speaker 1: Mother told the crowd that evil came in unseen threats
Speaker 1: against God, and anyone who attempted to thwart God's will,
Speaker 1: no matter what the circumstances, was doing the devil's work.
Speaker 1: Little did he know, however, that would soon be at
Speaker 1: the center of a controversy that would divide not only
Speaker 1: Boston but the colonies themselves. It would challenge not just religion,
Speaker 1: but societal beliefs, and some would even say that Mother's
Speaker 1: actions were on par with witchcraft itself. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 1: Welcome to American Shadows. At first, the symptoms were nothing
Speaker 1: more than a call, maybe a sneeze now and then
Speaker 1: within two weeks, though people complained they just didn't feel right.
Speaker 1: Headaches and low fever came next, followed by back aches.
Speaker 1: Then lesions in the nose and mouth began to form,
Speaker 1: almost imperceptibly. The telltale rash began next, forming on the
Speaker 1: face first, then spreading to the arms, hands, and down
Speaker 1: the body. Smallpox was the most contagious at this point,
Speaker 1: staying infectious until the scabs formed about nine days later.
Speaker 1: Those inflicted who survived to this point were lucky. Not
Speaker 1: only had they beaten a mortality rate of thirty to six,
Speaker 1: depending on the strain, but they developed a lifetime immunity
Speaker 1: from ever catching it again. There was a price, though.
Speaker 1: The disease left marks, deep pitted scars, often prominent on
Speaker 1: the face. Though it was epidemic throughout Europe in the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century, smallpox didn't exist in the Americas until colonists
Speaker 1: brought it with them, and without any immunity, it swept
Speaker 1: through the indigenous peoples. In sixteen thirty four, a colonist
Speaker 1: noted the mass death in a journal in great detail.
Speaker 1: The Native Americans became so ill in great numbers, and
Speaker 1: so quickly that entire tribes and families were unable to
Speaker 1: care for each other. He wrote, there were few left
Speaker 1: to bring water or food to the others, nor cover
Speaker 1: them with furs for warmth. They crawled from their dwellings
Speaker 1: for food and water, and often died while trying to return.
Speaker 1: He finished not by praying for the Native americans lives,
Speaker 1: but by thanking God that the virus hadn't afflicted the English.
Speaker 1: Smallpox would eventually contribute to the deaths of around half
Speaker 1: of Native American populations. Most of the new colonists were Puritans,
Speaker 1: who have not only believed in predestination, but they firmly
Speaker 1: believed they were God's chosen. The decimation of the indigenous peoples,
Speaker 1: who they called savages, was Heaven's way of herging the
Speaker 1: land in favor of the new settlers. They believed they
Speaker 1: were meant to take over the land, But the colonist's
Speaker 1: turn came soon enough. Like the Native Americans, the colonists
Speaker 1: children and their descendants were not immune to smallpox. Before long,
Speaker 1: epidemics rolled from generation to generation. From sixteen seventy seven
Speaker 1: to sixteen seventy eight, infected passengers aboard an English ship
Speaker 1: caused an epidemic to spread throughout Boston, but the worst
Speaker 1: outbreak in Boston didn't happen until sixteen ninety seven. One
Speaker 1: out of every seven citizens died. So common with smallpox
Speaker 1: that by seventeen o one the city established pest houses
Speaker 1: where they infected were taken. While you might think these
Speaker 1: were set up as many hospitals, they were little more
Speaker 1: than a place to dump the sick until they either
Speaker 1: died or miraculously survived. To prevent new outbreaks, arriving ships
Speaker 1: were searched. If a single case of smallpox was discovered,
Speaker 1: the ship and the entire crew had to quarantine aboard.
Speaker 1: Those aboard who weren't sick were now trapped with those
Speaker 1: who were. And I'm sure you can guess how that
Speaker 1: tended to play out. From seventeen o two until seventeen
Speaker 1: o three, casualties were so high that the city invoked
Speaker 1: new laws. Previously, the town bell rang for seven minutes
Speaker 1: for each death. Now, to keep the noise and interruptions down,
Speaker 1: the bell sounded only once. The contagious nature of the
Speaker 1: disease also required families to bring the deceased to the
Speaker 1: burial ground within an hour of death. Corpses you see,
Speaker 1: could still spread the virus to the living. With so
Speaker 1: many dying, often multiple people in the same household, the
Speaker 1: whole community was grieving for the more unscrupulous, though this
Speaker 1: time of morning became the perfect time to take advantage
Speaker 1: of others, overcharging for services or outrights, windling them. The
Speaker 1: practice became so commonplace that the city put select citizens
Speaker 1: in charge of ensuring fair pricing. No family went unscathed
Speaker 1: by smallpox. Cotton Mother wrote in his own journal that
Speaker 1: he had lost count of the number of friends, family,
Speaker 1: and neighbors who died from the disease. In seventeen o two,
Speaker 1: he lost his first wife. The couple had six children,
Speaker 1: and although they survived smallpox, scarlet fever and measles were
Speaker 1: also on the rise. Every Sunday, Mother led his congregation
Speaker 1: in prayer, but no amount of praying stopped the diseases
Speaker 1: from ravaging the city. Their prayers didn't save the four
Speaker 1: hundred and forty one colonists who died, roughly five percent
Speaker 1: of Boston's population. Of course, the newspapers didn't report the
Speaker 1: depths of black or Native Americans. While mandatory quarantines helped,
Speaker 1: Mother felt something else had to be done. As a
Speaker 1: younger man, had briefly considered a life in the medical
Speaker 1: field before becoming a minister, and as it happened, he
Speaker 1: still received publications from London that discussed inoculation. One night,
Speaker 1: Mather openly vented his frustration to an enslaved man in
Speaker 1: his service who went by the name Mather had given him, Anisimus.
Speaker 1: Ansimus had been a gift from Mather's congregation in December
Speaker 1: of seventeen o six. It's hard to imagine how anyone
Speaker 1: could gift another human being, but these were also the
Speaker 1: same people who believed God's will had killed Native Americans
Speaker 1: so that they themselves could prosper. Mather was interested in
Speaker 1: converting Anesimus to Christianity, and so he taught Anisimus to
Speaker 1: read and write alongside his own children, and discussions between
Speaker 1: them were not unusual. The concept of immunization, while unheard
Speaker 1: of in the colonies, wasn't new to parts of Europe
Speaker 1: or Africa. Ansimus explained he had no fear of small
Speaker 1: because he had been given a protective operation as a boy.
Speaker 1: Intrigued mother asked how the procedure worked. The method was
Speaker 1: rather crude back then. Essentially fluid was taken from an
Speaker 1: infected person's blisters and transferred into an incision made in
Speaker 1: the arm and leg of an unaffected person. Without understanding
Speaker 1: what we know today about virus load and exposure, Animus's
Speaker 1: explanation was simple. By taking a tiny amount of the
Speaker 1: virus and introducing it into the bloodstream of a healthy person,
Speaker 1: the virus couldn't multiply fast enough before the body's immune
Speaker 1: system killed it. This is what we now know as
Speaker 1: vary elation, a version of an oculation. Sure, the inoculated
Speaker 1: person would get a little sick, but they'd survive, and
Speaker 1: afterward they'd be immune for life. Mother quickly interviewed other
Speaker 1: enslaved people in the city. He learned that the process
Speaker 1: had been widespread and defective in Africa. Before long, he
Speaker 1: formed an idea. If he could find a way to
Speaker 1: inoculate people, the colonists would be free of smallpox for good.
Speaker 1: It was one and a whole new generation was vulnerable
Speaker 1: should a new outbreak hit the city. Little did he
Speaker 1: or anyone else know, it was already there, sitting just
Speaker 1: offshore in a trading ship named the h MS. Sea
Speaker 1: Horse pirates were common in seventy one. To combat them,
Speaker 1: warships like the Sea Horse often escorted smaller merchant ships
Speaker 1: to and from ports. The Sea Horses Captain Thomas Durrell,
Speaker 1: was a seasoned veteran with a reputation for rushing trips.
Speaker 1: In his opinion, the faster they and the merchant ships traveled,
Speaker 1: the better. By the time the ship and crew pulled
Speaker 1: into Boston Harbor, newspapers had reported that Europe at large
Speaker 1: and the London in particular, were in the midst of
Speaker 1: an epidemic of bubonic plague, Making matters worse. An outbreak
Speaker 1: of smallpox had also been reported in both London and Barbados.
Speaker 1: The route Durrell and his crew had sailed because cargo
Speaker 1: ships from both locations came into port frequently. Customs agents
Speaker 1: in Boston had taken to examining incoming crews for traces
Speaker 1: of sickness, but the captain didn't subscribe to Boston's inspection requirements.
Speaker 1: Such an intrusion of his liberties were an inconvenience to
Speaker 1: his business. Sure, there had been death swollen route, but
Speaker 1: Durrell knew better than to be specific in the ship's logs.
Speaker 1: Once the crew laid anchor, he released them to go
Speaker 1: ashore at Castle Island. On May twelve, a report came
Speaker 1: in from the Sea Horse. The last man to die
Speaker 1: had been young and healthy. Just days after the ship docked.
Speaker 1: Inspectors were sent to instigate there. They were horrified to
Speaker 1: discover two other young men, both in the early stages
Speaker 1: of smallpox. But the real terror came when they learned
Speaker 1: that forty three other crew members were freely roaming Boston's streets.
Speaker 1: The City council ordered an immediate quarantine for the Sea Horse.
Speaker 1: It took several days before all the men were found
Speaker 1: and returned to their ships. Captain and crew were ordered
Speaker 1: to quarantine at a hospital on Spectacle Island. Darrell refused,
Speaker 1: though adamant that his men hadn't brought smallpox ashore. Eventually
Speaker 1: he left Boston Harbor, but instead of heading to the hospital,
Speaker 1: he instead dropped anchor at Bird Island. While city council
Speaker 1: members and the ship's captain quarreled, officials decided to keep
Speaker 1: their findings aboard the Sea Horse out of the public sears.
Speaker 1: There was no reason to cause a panic, after all,
Speaker 1: but secrets have a way of leaking, and before long,
Speaker 1: the news, along with the upcoming epidemic spread through the
Speaker 1: city like fire. Durrell, angry with the implication that he
Speaker 1: had caused the outbreak, and even more furious that he
Speaker 1: and the ship were now in lockdown, had a musician
Speaker 1: play the trumpet at all hours, disturbing the peace of
Speaker 1: those living close to shore. Eight days into the quarantine,
Speaker 1: officials tried to quiet the rumors and concern. People were
Speaker 1: on edge. By May twenty six, Cotton Mather wrote in
Speaker 1: his diary that smallpox would be upon them once more.
Speaker 1: The disease wasn't all that was on his mind, though
Speaker 1: his debts were growing too. His second marriage was in trouble,
Speaker 1: and on top of all of that, his congregation had
Speaker 1: started to dwindle. Puritans were becoming less popular. His reputation
Speaker 1: had been under fire since the uproar, of which chials
Speaker 1: in Salem, and his opponents, both personal and religious, seemed
Speaker 1: to be attacking him from all sides. A of course,
Speaker 1: mother wasn't the easiest person to get along with. He
Speaker 1: was prone to fits of rage, exaggeration in bravado, and
Speaker 1: his clinging to outdated conventions didn't win him any popularity contests.
Speaker 1: He had long been saying another outbreak was on the way,
Speaker 1: and when one hadn't happened in a few years, people
Speaker 1: began to dismiss his warnings. Not to be ignored, he
Speaker 1: claimed a destroying angel would wreak havoc on Boston. But
Speaker 1: the warm spring weather had arrived, people ventured out and
Speaker 1: mingled with their neighbors, unaware that infected sailors were among them.
Speaker 1: Not surprisingly, many became ill. Soon enough, the city officials
Speaker 1: could no longer pretend the virus wasn't spreading. They made
Speaker 1: another announcement in the paper, notifying the town that they
Speaker 1: had eight known cases, though in reality the numbers were
Speaker 1: much higher. Read quarantine flags cropped up in front of
Speaker 1: people's homes, along with signs reading Lord have mercy on
Speaker 1: this house. Eventually the flags were everywhere in the city,
Speaker 1: enforced martial law. While Mather was worried, he also couldn't
Speaker 1: help feeling a little justified. Deciding that now was the
Speaker 1: time to implement his plan, he wrote to a prominent
Speaker 1: physician and friend, telling him about Nissimus and their concept
Speaker 1: of inoculation. He didn't have to wait long for the
Speaker 1: rejection letter. Undeterred, Mather wrote to several more physicians, one
Speaker 1: doctor Zadbiel. Boylston responded and asked for any notes and
Speaker 1: papers Mather had on the subject. Meanwhile, smallpox cases exploded.
Speaker 1: People no longer had faith in city officials to tell
Speaker 1: the truth and began to evacuate the city, potentially spreading
Speaker 1: the disease farther. By the time Mather's letter arrived, doctor
Speaker 1: Boylston had already sent his wife and daughters to stay
Speaker 1: with relatives in another colony. One of his sons remained
Speaker 1: at school in Cambridge, though, and two more stayed in Boston.
Speaker 1: Knowing how deadly the disease was, the doctor became obsessive
Speaker 1: about changing clothes between patients, among other sanitation practices. After
Speaker 1: much deliberation about the best method of an oculation, Boylston
Speaker 1: decided it was time for a trial and sent a
Speaker 1: note to Mather telling him he would attempt to immunize
Speaker 1: a few test subjects. After formulating the procedure and coming
Speaker 1: up with what he thought was a solid plan, Boylston
Speaker 1: visited one of his patients who was twelve days into
Speaker 1: the sickness. After cleaning the skin on his patient's arm,
Speaker 1: Boylston pierced a few blisters and collected the fluid with
Speaker 1: a quill. He transferred liquid to a vial and placed
Speaker 1: to stop er in it, then tucked the vial into
Speaker 1: his jacket pocket to keep it at body temperature. Finally,
Speaker 1: he headed home to his test subjects. One was his
Speaker 1: own son, six year old Thomas. Also part of the
Speaker 1: test would be his assistant, an enslaved man called Jack,
Speaker 1: and the man's young son Jackie. After that the waiting began.
Speaker 1: Their plan might very well save lives, but like so
Speaker 1: many things in life, only time would tell. Inoculation wasn't pleasant.
Speaker 1: Not just the procedure, mind you, that was bad enough.
Speaker 1: The preparation leading up to it wasn't exactly a walk
Speaker 1: in the park. But from the medical journals Boilston had read,
Speaker 1: along with Mather's interview notes from the black population, the
Speaker 1: doctor had what he hoped would work. First, the patient
Speaker 1: was to take a laxative to purge their system during
Speaker 1: the isolation. A week before and three weeks after the procedure. Thomas, Jackie,
Speaker 1: and Jack were also placed on a special diet, no
Speaker 1: milk or other dairy products. Boylston chose to inoculate Thomas first.
Speaker 1: He made an incision on his son's upper arm then
Speaker 1: placed a single drop of liquid from the vial into
Speaker 1: the open wound. Then the process was repeated, this time
Speaker 1: on the boy's upper thigh near the buttocks. Not once
Speaker 1: did Thomas cry out despite the lack of a topical
Speaker 1: memming agent. Jackie was just a toddler, and although he
Speaker 1: did cry, he was back to playing moments afterward. Jack
Speaker 1: was last. Finally, with the procedures complete, all the windows
Speaker 1: in the house were shut and the three patients were
Speaker 1: kept in a single room in an attempt to contain
Speaker 1: the virus. Four days later, the virus may not have
Speaker 1: spread among the test subjects, but word had. Citizens were
Speaker 1: horrified and outraged. They openly condemned Boylston for not only
Speaker 1: using his own son, but for such a dangerous and
Speaker 1: clearly immoral procedure. Once they learned that their own minister
Speaker 1: had stigated the inoculations, they became downright incensed. A couple
Speaker 1: of days later, Jackie and Thomas had begun to run fevers.
Speaker 1: Boylston had hoped that symptoms would be mild, but now
Speaker 1: he wondered if it had saved his son or condemned
Speaker 1: him to a premature death. All he could do was
Speaker 1: wait Eight days into the quarantine, Jackie seemed better, but
Speaker 1: Thomas's fever spiked. He twitched in his sleep and had
Speaker 1: vivid nightmares. On day nine, Boylston induced vomiting. Seven hours later,
Speaker 1: his son's fever broke. The two boys developed blisters on
Speaker 1: the ninth day, but Jack barely had any symptoms. Many
Speaker 1: of the white population in Boston felt that inoculation was
Speaker 1: dangerous and that the black population had lied about its
Speaker 1: effectiveness in an attempt to kill off their owners. Boylston, however,
Speaker 1: held fast to his belief that immunization was life saving.
Speaker 1: Time and again, the doctor found himself under attack, even
Speaker 1: when Jack, Jackie, and Thomas had fully recovered without the
Speaker 1: devastating symptoms and scarring that most others experienced from smallpox.
Speaker 1: Some people objected to inoculations based on religious beliefs. They
Speaker 1: believed that God's will wasn't something to tamper with, and
Speaker 1: that changing the course of an illness was nothing short
Speaker 1: of the devil's work. Mather did his best persuade people
Speaker 1: that rejecting inoculation was a direct violation of the sixth commandment,
Speaker 1: thou shalt not kill those unwilling to inoculate were welcoming
Speaker 1: the disease, and that was the true crime against God.
Speaker 1: In July, doctor Boylston was called before the city officials.
Speaker 1: No amount of scientific evidence nor medical research from England
Speaker 1: persuaded the committee. Though he did his best to defend
Speaker 1: himself and his practice, the doctor realized the councilman and
Speaker 1: the public had made up their minds against immunization. He left,
Speaker 1: determined to continue inoculating people as long as smallpox was
Speaker 1: a threat to the community. By now, Boylston had successfully
Speaker 1: inoculated two more of his sons. Mother, however, chose not
Speaker 1: to inoculate his children. He wrestled with indecision and hoped
Speaker 1: that if officials outlawed inoculations, he would be off the
Speaker 1: hook as a hypocrite. Had lost his first wife and
Speaker 1: ten of his fifteen children to disease, and two of
Speaker 1: his daughters were now ill, Hannah and Abigail. He wrote
Speaker 1: in his journal that the cursed clamor of people fiercely
Speaker 1: possessed by the devil would stop him from saving the
Speaker 1: lives of his remaining children and complicating matters, Abigail was
Speaker 1: weeks away from giving birth. Shortly afterward, his son Samuel
Speaker 1: reported that the college roommate had come down with allpox
Speaker 1: and begged to be inoculated. With two of his children
Speaker 1: already stricken, mother relented. Samuel and Hannah survived, though Abigail
Speaker 1: and her baby died. Smallpox continued to ravage the city,
Speaker 1: and the death toll continued to rise. Doctor Boylston was
Speaker 1: verbally and sometimes physically assaulted. His saddle was tard after
Speaker 1: an elderly inoculation patient died. Others cried out for his imprisonment,
Speaker 1: but the doctor wasn't the only one under attack. One morning,
Speaker 1: while the Mather household slept, someone threw a crude bomb
Speaker 1: through a window. Unfortunately, the fuse was knocked loose and
Speaker 1: the device fizzled. Though a hefty reward was offered, not
Speaker 1: a single person stepped forward with any information. That October
Speaker 1: saw the highest death toll yet, an average of thirteen
Speaker 1: deaths a day. Boylston continued to immunize those who sought
Speaker 1: him mount and by December the inoculations were seeming to
Speaker 1: take hold. Attacks against him continued to rise, though, and
Speaker 1: fearing for the safety of his family, he stopped taking
Speaker 1: on new patients for the month between December and January. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: two other doctors and neighboring towns took up the practice
Speaker 1: of immunization. By February, the Boston Newsletter wrote that not
Speaker 1: a single case of smallpox had been reported for the
Speaker 1: first time in nearly a year. In May, Boylston performed
Speaker 1: his last inoculations, many on Mather's extended family who had
Speaker 1: returned to the city. The minister recorded the success in
Speaker 1: his journal, stating that several hundred people of all ages
Speaker 1: and races had been inoculated. The smallpox epidemic had come
Speaker 1: to an end, though the debate raged on and several
Speaker 1: cities banned the practice. Those who chose to protect themselves
Speaker 1: found doctors willing to inoculate, but smallpox and the debate
Speaker 1: around immunization was far from over. In fact, it was
Speaker 1: just getting started. With the population booming in cities growing denser,
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before diseases like smallpox returned. People living
Speaker 1: in areas that banned inoculations often sent family members to Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: where the procedure was allowed. In seventeen seventy five, a
Speaker 1: new outbreak spread through the colonies, threatening to infect the
Speaker 1: new Continental Army. People fled the city, hoping to find
Speaker 1: refuge in nearby towns, but General George Washington banned them
Speaker 1: from the army's camps to prevent further infection. The British
Speaker 1: and their mercenaries new Colonials were vulnerable to smallpox, and
Speaker 1: sent infected prisoners directly into the colonies. And if that
Speaker 1: sounds a bit like Germ warfare, that's because it was.
Speaker 1: If the rebels were sick, the budding revolution would be
Speaker 1: over without much of a fight. After all, the British
Speaker 1: troops had been inoculated back in England, where the practice
Speaker 1: was legal and commonplace. The plan seemed to work in
Speaker 1: the fall of seventeen seventy five, when over ten thousand
Speaker 1: Colonial troops were sent to march on Quebec. Failure to
Speaker 1: take the Canadian city was blamed mainly on illness. Three
Speaker 1: thousand men were stricken with smallpox, prompting John Adams to
Speaker 1: say that the disease was ten times worse than any
Speaker 1: human adversary. General Washington also knew the dangers of the disease.
Speaker 1: He had survived the illness as a child, but though
Speaker 1: he believed in an oculation, his orders were to prohibit
Speaker 1: it among his men. The month long process was too
Speaker 1: time consuming, he told them. When the British left Boston
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy six, Washington sent a thousand troops had
Speaker 1: survived smallpox to secure the city. With a growing need
Speaker 1: for even more soldiers, the call went out for volunteers.
Speaker 1: Men from far and wide joined, but most of them
Speaker 1: had no immunity. Virginia had barely been touched by smallpox,
Speaker 1: but when enlisted men returned home, they brought the deadly
Speaker 1: disease with them. Now Washington was faced with a problem.
Speaker 1: If he didn't inoculate his men, he wouldn't have enough
Speaker 1: of them to fight, Defying the laws against it, he
Speaker 1: had recruits. Inoculated soldiers were sworn to secrecy. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: do for the British to learn that the majority of
Speaker 1: the rebel troops were incapacitated during the quarantine period. By
Speaker 1: the year's end, forty men would carry smallpox immunity for
Speaker 1: the rest of their lives. Infection rates dropped from seventeen
Speaker 1: percent to just one percent. After that, Washington's troops were
Speaker 1: able to travel up and down the coastline and move
Speaker 1: from city to city without catching or spreading the disease.
Speaker 1: Their immunity kept them healthy and more importantly, allowed them
Speaker 1: to continue the fight for American independence. And the rest,
Speaker 1: as they say, is history. There's more to this story.
Speaker 1: Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all
Speaker 1: about it. In seventeen ninety six, Dr Edward Jenner created
Speaker 1: the first vaccine for smallpox. Though his method was considerably
Speaker 1: safer and more comfortable than earlier techniques, people still tended
Speaker 1: to resist immunization, and smallpox outbreaks continued worldwide. In just
Speaker 1: the twentieth century alone, about two million people died from
Speaker 1: the disease. While smallpox may seem like something from our
Speaker 1: distant past, work towards truly eliminating the disease didn't happen
Speaker 1: until nineteen sixty four. That's when the World Health Organization
Speaker 1: Expert Committee came up with an aggressive plan to vACC
Speaker 1: nate the entire world population. Without it, outbreaks would always
Speaker 1: threaten new generations. The disease was so persistent and contagious
Speaker 1: that even when of Western Nigeria was vaccinated, an outbreak
Speaker 1: still occurred in the remaining ten The source of the
Speaker 1: flare up reportedly originated in a religious group that had
Speaker 1: been against vaccination supplying the world with enough vaccines proved
Speaker 1: to be a monumental task. Liquid serum had to be
Speaker 1: used within forty eight hours. The freeze dried version was
Speaker 1: created along with the new delivery method, a jet injector,
Speaker 1: allowing workers to deliver a thousand vaccinations an hour. Though efficient,
Speaker 1: the injector was cost prohibitive, so an even better delivery
Speaker 1: method was created, a bifurcated needle, which is essentially a
Speaker 1: two pronged syringe. The operations suffered another setback when supplies
Speaker 1: were delayed and new outbreaks erupted. Staff members scrambled to
Speaker 1: isolate and contain the infected. The organization was losing the
Speaker 1: war on smallpox. On New Year's Day of nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization launched an even more aggressive eradication program.
Speaker 1: The result was the elimination of smallpox in Western Europe, Japan,
Speaker 1: and North America, among other places. Disaster struck again in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy though, killing a hundred and twenty three unvaccinated
Speaker 1: people in India. A door to door search helped vaccinate
Speaker 1: the vulnerable and isolate the sick. In nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: yet another outbreak occurred this time in Yugoslavia, authorities declared
Speaker 1: martial law to enforce quarantine, and the outbreak lasted a
Speaker 1: mere two months. By nine seventy five, smallpox persisted primarily
Speaker 1: in the Horn of Africa. Vaccinating people there had proved difficult.
Speaker 1: Much of the area was in the midst of civil war.
Speaker 1: Famine and violence caused many refugees to flee take the
Speaker 1: disease with them, and getting people in supplies in and
Speaker 1: out of the region was difficult without transportation infrastructure. The
Speaker 1: last case of the deadliest strain of smallpox, very all
Speaker 1: a major, was found in a three year old girl
Speaker 1: in India in nineteen seventy seven. The World Health Organization
Speaker 1: traveled to Bangladesh to isolate the child. Thankfully, with medical treatment,
Speaker 1: she made a full recovery. Since that young girl was
Speaker 1: the last known case of the deadliest strain of smallpox,
Speaker 1: a sample taken from her was transferred to the United
Speaker 1: States Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and stored with
Speaker 1: other disease samples there. Finally, on December nine of ninety nine,
Speaker 1: smallpox was declared completely eradicated. Today, it's the only disease
Speaker 1: humanity has ever been able to eliminate. The cost totaled
Speaker 1: over three hundred million dollars, with the United States making
Speaker 1: the largest contribution. That's over a billion dollars today adjusting
Speaker 1: for a nation. While the World Health Organization kept a
Speaker 1: couple of the vaccines on hand just in case, they
Speaker 1: asked that all samples of smallpox be destroyed. After all,
Speaker 1: if the disease were ever to find its way back
Speaker 1: into the population, the results would be catastrophic. Most countries
Speaker 1: agreed and destroyed their samples. Two, however, did not, and
Speaker 1: they still have samples of the deadliest strain of smallpox
Speaker 1: in history. Those countries Russia and the United States. American
Speaker 1: Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was written
Speaker 1: by Michelle Muto with researcher Robin Miniter, and produced by
Speaker 1: Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Minky,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more about out
Speaker 1: the show, visit grim and Mild dot com. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. M