Variolation

Child with smallpox courtesy of CDC/James Hicks

Variolation is a form of inoculating a person with the smallpox virus in an effort to minimize the severity of the disease. I first became intrigued by the concept when I was watching a movie about John Adams, the second president of the United States. To my surprise, I discovered the scene depicting Abigail Adams purposely having her children infected with smallpox had really taken place. But John and Abigail Adams lived during the 18th century. What about the 17th?

The technique predates vaccination as we know it, and apparently has its origin in 8th-century India. Records indicate that China used variolation by the 10th century. In the West, Lady Mary Wortley Montague is credited for bringing it to England in 1721 after witnessing the practice being used by a doctor in Constantinople.

Again, I thought this would be a plot point that I would have to bypass since The Dreaming: Walks Through Mist is 17th-century Virginia. Then, I did a little more reading. In Massachusetts, Cotton Mather had heard about variolation from a slave in 1706. The slave, from western Africa, had been inoculated as a child which according to him was common practice there. This gave me the lead I needed as the slave would have grown up during the 17th century.

According to medical historians, variolation made its way to Egypt during the 13th century. It is unknown exactly when the form of inoculation came about in North and western Africa, but it was definitely known by the late-17th century and most likely earlier.

With this knowledge, I reasoned, why couldn't I write such a scene? The circumstances were very similar in 17th-century Virginia as Massachusetts. Because my scene takes place during mid-century, the Africans were usually indentured servants, rather than lifelong slaves, but the knowledge could have been available. Even during the 18th century in the colonies, variolation was often thought of as African black magic, therefore frequently discredited among the medical community.

The technique consists of collecting the virus with a lancet from a pustule of an infected person and transferring it under the skin in the arm or leg of the person without the disease. Unlike modern vaccination, this procedure gives the non-infected person an active case of smallpox. However, with the use of variolation, the person, hopefully, contracted a milder form.

Death resulted in 2-3% of the cases where variolation was used. Whereas, the normal fatality rate was 20-30% with much higher percentages for children and Native Americans. Most survivors were left with disfiguring scars, while blindness and limb deformities were less common complications.

The obvious disadvantage to variolation was that people infected through this method could spread the natural severe form of the virus to others. In a time before routine vaccination, the risks seemed to far outweigh the consequences.

Kim Murphy

www.KimMurphy.net

Virginia's Other Cash Crop

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons

With the recent election where a couple of states have voted to legalize marijuana, I thought I'd blog about the history of hemp (which includes the marijuana variety) in Virginia. In the early 1600s, the colony was on the verge of failing to make a profit until John Rolfe married Pocahontas to gain the secret of growing tobacco. But hemp, often overlooked in history books due to its bad reputation in modern times, was another important crop.

 In 1611, Sir Thomas Dale introduced hemp to Virginia. The English navy depended on the crop, but the demand was far greater than the country was able to produce. Hemp was used for paper, cordage, fiber for linen, and of course, medicinal uses. The First Virginia Assembly encouraged colonists to grow hemp, and they received favorable reports from England on the superiority of the colony's crop.

 The early years were hampered by shortage of seed and lack of skilled labor to separate the fiber from the woody part of the stalks to make cordage. In 1646, the Virginia Assembly commissioned houses to be built where poor children were taught to card, knit, and spin, thus helping the manufacture of linen. In 1665, the removal of import duties to England stimulated production further

Less than ten years later, laws were enacted for each county to purchase and distribute hemp seed. Failure to do so resulted in fines. In spite of these encouragements, during the 17^th century, hemp production tended to remain limited to self-sufficient farms, never really competing with tobacco until well into the 18^th century, where the practice became so common that even founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp.

Hemp's importance went beyond cordage and fiber. Both industrial hemp and what's known today as marijuana are classified as Cannabis sativa, a species with hundreds of varieties. According to some sources, many varieties that were grown in North America have been lost. The East Indian variety (marijuana) of hemp was known as "bangue" in the 17^th century from the Hindi word "bhang."

Culpeper's Complete Herb first published in 1653, states that hemp, "is so well known to every good housewife in the country, that I shall not need to write any description of it." Besides the well known modern use of pain relief, Culpeper advised the different portions of the plant to be used for various ailments, such as jaundice, digestive disorders, killing worms, flushing earwigs from the ear canal, and burns.

While hemp has become much maligned in recent years, Virginians of the 17^th and 18^th centuries held no reservations for making use of its quality fiber or legitimate medical uses.

Kim Murphy
www.KimMurphy.net

Sources

Herndon,George Melvin, "The story of hemp in colonial Virginia." Doctor of Philosophy dissertation, University of Virginia, 1959.

Culpeper, Nicholas. Culpeper's Complete Herbal