301 From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1

Smallpox was the most feared disease in North America and in many parts of the world before its eradication in 1980. So how did early Americans live with smallpox and work to prevent it? How did they help eradicate this terrible disease? Over the next two episodes, we’ll explore smallpox in North America. We’ll investigate how smallpox came to North America, how North Americans worked to contain, control, and prevent outbreaks of the disease, and how the story of smallpox is also the story of immunization. In this episode, we join experts Dr. René Najera, Farren Yero, Ben Mutschler, and Andrew Wehrman for a journey through the history of smallpox and the world’s first immunization procedure: inoculation. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/301 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 005: Jeanne Abrams, Revolutionary Medicine 🎧 Episode 116: Erica Charters, Disease & the Seven Years’ War 🎧 Episode 174: Thomas Apel, Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic 🎧 Episode 263 Sari Altschuler, The Medical Imagination 🎧 Episode 273: Victoria Johnson, David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Early Republic 🎧 Episode 276: Stephen Fried, Benjamin Rush REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices