"George Washington had a problem in the winter of 1777. Smallpox was devastating the already undermanned Continental Army, and much-needed new recruits were being quarantined for a month as a precautionary measure. In addition, Washington had intelligence that the British had devised a scheme to infect more troops. So the general made a fateful decision. Every soldier and recruit would be inoculated, a technique by which they would be infected, likely get a mild case, and acquire immunity."
"In the Revolution, physicians were relatively more prominent than they have been in subsequent moments of American history. In these battles, as in most wars, more soldiers were dying of disease than were dying of combat."
"Washington wrote to military physician William Shippen Jr.: If the business is immediately begun and favoured with the common success, I would fain hope they will be soon fit for duty, and that in a short space of time we shall have an Army not subject to this the greatest of all calamities."
During the American Revolution, disease posed a greater threat to the Continental Army than combat itself. In winter 1777, smallpox threatened to decimate George Washington's already undermanned forces, with new recruits requiring month-long quarantines and British forces allegedly planning biological warfare. Washington made a decisive choice to inoculate all soldiers and recruits, a technique involving controlled infection to build immunity. This medical intervention proved crucial for maintaining troop strength. Historians from Harvard's School of Public Health are examining the significant role physicians, medicine, and disease played during the Revolutionary War as part of a series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Read at Harvard Gazette
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]