Smallpox and the American Revolution, Coursework Example

In any human conflict, significant suffering comes not only from militarized violence but starvation, disease and poverty. This unfortunate trend was significantly more pronounced in the pre-modern era where a lack of understanding regarding germ theory, modern hygiene or medical interventions resulted in significant loss of human life. The American Revolution possessed a variety of unique characteristics which resulted in greater disease potential.

First of all the war created unique opportunities for disease epidemic as the war was one of the first significant events to involve a variety of traditionally isolated North American agricultural regions. With the dynamic movement of large land armies from Europe, then around the various rebellious states and with conflict between the Colonials and the Native American tribes, the war represented a significant spike in the transit of large numbers of people and the spread of disease. All of these disease promoting variables were inevitably compounded by a disruption in food supplies due to the economic chaos of the war and an increase in urban population as rural people fled to the cities for protection and stability. In general, one could argue that no side – Colonial, British or Native – truly took the necessary preventive actions due to a lack of understanding of germ theory. However, the impact of this lack of understanding was dramatically more pronounced in the Native American population as they had previously had little to no exposure to European diseases such as Smallpox.

On the military front, smallpox played a major role in the outcome of numerous campaigns. This was most pronounced in the Colonial campaigns against the Native American Iroquois Nation in upstate New York. These tribes had already suffered from diseases brought over by the Europeans centuries before, however the increased contact brought by the war and the European settlement of central New York exposed these tribes to significant more smallpox and other epidemics. On the other hand, it is likely that generally isolated agricultural Colonial communities suffered from a significant up spike in smallpox and other diseases as new people and armies moved throughout the region. The key point is that Smallpox and other diseases preyed on isolated communities and that the effects of the war inevitably brought these communities into contact with the larger political world of North America.

In modern times, the risk and memory of smallpox is signi?cantly decreased due to the eradication of the disease in the late 1970s. As recently as WWI, disease was a major component of any military conflict with nearly as many people dying of disease as direct violence. Increasing vaccination and an understanding of hygiene dramatically reduced these fatalities during the intervening decades. As smallpox is completely dependent on a human host, the WHO was able to gradually isolate and eradicate the disease through a worldwide vaccination effort in the late 1970s. In the late 1980s, most nations decided to stop mandatory vaccination campaigns against smallpox, which further reduced the general public’s knowledge and understanding of this terrible and deadly disease. This is an interesting phenomenon as globalization has only increased the rapid spread of people and disease around the world making the modern world even more vulnerable to disease and epidemics. As the recent outbreak of bird flu has demonstrated, the modern world is dangerously at risk to the spread of epidemics. This danger is only compounded as almost no one worldwide receives the smallpox which would make it even more deadly if an epidemic ever occurred. With the increased proximity of human populations around the world and the disease’s 10 day incubation period, smallpox carriers could travel by air around the world and put whole nations at risk. The country currently only stockpiles 15 million vaccine doses and could be quickly overwhelmed in the event of a mass epidemic from a new strain of smallpox. The situation is worse worldwide as the WHO reports that there are only 90 millions doses in existence with varying levels of age and potency. The WHO itself only possesses 500,000 doses. This imbalance between the haves and have-nots would mimice the reality of Colonial America where contagion was much more severe for the lower classes forced to endure crowded quarters and malnutrition.

In conclusion, smallpox played a major role in all pre-modern military conflicts. The unique characteristics of the American Revolution compounded this impact as the war saw the exposure of generally isolated communities to the larger North American and European political and disease spectrum. When the conflict with the Native Americans is added to the general malnutrition and population disruption that the war generated, once can definitely say that disease and smallpox in particular had a devastating and defining impact on the human scale of the war.

References

Barquet N, Domingo P (1997). “Smallpox: the triumph over the most terrible of the ministers of death” Ann. Intern. Med. 127 (8 Pt 1): 635–42

Hays, JN (2005). “Epidemics and pandemics: their impacts on human history“. ABC-CLIO.

Ryan KJ, Ray CG (2004). Sherris Medical Microbiology (4th ed.). McGraw Hill. pp. 525–8.