Talk:History of smallpox

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2020 and 11 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): PaladinSandalphon.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:39, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Focus

This is about the epidemiological history of the disease. It is not tasteful to paste a medical photo of the disease. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.107.189.66 (talk) 23:45, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Repeated words

In the article the words "Wiped out rural villages in successive waves." or something of the like are repeated twice. I took the liberty to delete them as it was redundent and situated too closely to sound independent of one another.GundamMerc (talk) 22:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Query

Copied from User talk: Wetman:

Can you list on the talk page what you edited and why? Not that there are many people on that page, but it would still be useful to know what you edited without having to look it up.GundamMerc (talk) 02:15, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I merely identified "A Spanish priest" formerly in the text as the Spanish Franciscan Motolinia and in a footnote gave the reference for the quote, which was demanded by a tagger, as quoted in Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (1999:136). I'll copy this post-and-response to Talk:History of smallpox. I got the reference through Google books.--Wetman (talk) 13:28, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

thank you for being helpful.--GundamMerc (talk) 13:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. Now I see that we already have an article Toribio de Benavente Motolinia, author of a Historia de los Indios. Someone may want to install a link.--Wetman (talk) 16:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Can you do the link, i cant seem to get it to work.GundamMerc (talk) 01:43, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Insert non-formatted text here

Citations: There are plenty of credible citations used in this article. However, there are a few places in the article where an addition of citations would be helpful to researchers. • Consider adding more citations in the Epidemics in the Americas section, in the parts about Hernan Cortes and the Inca people. The stories told in both are interesting but where are the sources that they came from? • There is no citation for the spread of smallpox to the thirteen colonies. Consider adding one so readers can find more information if they are interested. • Also, consider updating citation nine to a more current article or website. Although the information is still accurate, the age of the source listed may cause readers some confusion as to whether or not the information is up to date. Information Thoroughness: The information provided in this article is quite thorough in most areas. However, more information could be added in the following areas: • The section on India: How did the disease get spread there in the first place? • The Franco-Prussian War: Where was said epidemic triggered? In Prussia? What part of the war triggered it? Was it the conditions people lived in? • Japan: Where did the settlers who brought the disease come from? How did they get infected in the first place? Completeness of Information: The article covers most of the information about the progression of smallpox across the globe and the history of the spread of the disease. However, there a couple of topics that seems to be missing. • There is no information at all about the eradication of smallpox, other than the fact that it was eradicated. Consider adding more information about how humans came up with a vaccination, who developed it, how it was distributed, etc. Adding information about how smallpox outbreaks came to an end will help complete the article on the history of the disease. • Were there any outbreaks in Africa? There seems to be no information at all about smallpox in this area of the world. If there were no epidemics, why was that the case? If there were, consider adding more information about how the disease was spread and when the epidemics happened.

Charts and Graphics: The addition of a chart helps to summarize the information in that part of the article nicely. It provides a break in the reading and helps researcher by providing a timeline of information about when epidemics happened and what places were affected by them. However, a couple of additions could be made to the chart in order to improve it. • The chart provided is incomplete. The information that is provided in the chart is interesting and helpful but the blank spaces can be frustrating for a researcher who is trying to find more information on those particular topics. • The chart only includes documented smallpox epidemics in the New World. Perhaps adding similar charts in the other sections as well would help to demonstrate the history of smallpox more clearly than just one chart that starts in the middle the progression of smallpox across the globe. • There are no graphics that go with this article. An idea would be to add a map of the world perhaps, colour coded to show visually how smallpox spread across the globe throughout the centuries; which areas of the world were in an epidemic and when. • A bar graph showing percentage of population infected, deceased due to smallpox, and uninfected in a certain population may also be an interesting idea for a graphic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ddabell (talk • contribs) 22:08, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I added a section of epidemics in Africa as there was no information on that currently and started a new section on the history of variolation or inoculation of smallpox. --ddabell (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.183.170.91 (talk) 17:09, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a wikilink to Smallpox in the first paragraph of this article? I am not very well-versed in wiki rules but it seems like there should be. Greatapes (talk) 02:53, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

History 208 Review

The article begins with an informative introduction to lead the article. Clear headings are provided for each of the sections which provide an organized structure throughout the article. References are provided in the article with no missing citations. The background information on the various epidemics is detailed and thorough. The chart provided in the article is clear and improves the article by providing a visual. The heading of “Australasian epidemics” is confusing. Is it meant to say Australian? There is also an additional heading of “Erradication” yet nothing appears underneath this heading, making the article seem incomplete. The article includes pictures within the text creating a better looking article. Overall, the article is organized well and is objective towards the information of the topic. The information in the article is accurate as well as relevant to the topic. The article includes a good quality of writing and is easy for the reader to follow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rcoutts12 (talk • contribs) 02:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

The information and the history of inoculation were very interesting. Was there any particular reason for the boys to be inoculated in a different nostril than the girls? In the second paragraph about Mary, I was just wondering who Job was and his tribulations. There were a couple typos but very few and very far between. The information provided was relevant to the topic and is accurate. This article was well done and very informative. It was really interesting to see the similarities between cowpox and smallpox and how each was used in the inoculation process. The article was well done and had a good flow to it. Krcountrygirl (talk) 03:27, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Redundant articles on variolation/inoculation

There appear to be several articles dealing with variolation/inoculation, with some identical text or different text treating the identical subject matter:

• History_of_smallpox#Variolation - 1,969 words (just the section on Variolation) (orphan article)
• Inoculation - 2009 words
• Smallpox_variolation - 2,226 words (orphan article--no inlinks)

The first two should should be combined in some way, with the orphan article deleted (after moving any unique content from it into the combined format.

Somewhat less redundant, but also overlapping in content, are:

• Smallpox#Prevention
• Smallpox_vaccine
• Variolation (a redirect to Inoculation)

Mathglot (talk) 22:35, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Have commented here. Graham Colm (talk) 23:27, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. As a new user, I'm certainly frustrated that the discussion of this subject is split between two parallel articles. I understand that the original idea was to have Variolation to be the narrow article on smallpox only, and Inoculation be the broad article describing other uses of the technique (see this discussion) but it seems like that goal was not achieved. I believe that we should either merge these two articles, integrating the content, or enforce the split as originally envisioned. Either way, the history of the smallpox technique should be in one article, with appropriate summary and links in other articles. Hi-storian (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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Sources

I reverted an IP's tagging of the entire article for bad sources based on what appears to be a single paragraph further down in the article. A better alternative, if this is a serious effort and not just vandalism, would be to tag the individual sources that are in question with an explanation of why they are problematic. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:50, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Advised IP on their talk page to use Template:Better source for specific sources. There are 181 footnotes (counting multiple references to the same sources) in the article and the vast majority, at first glance, seem to be acceptable. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 00:16, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Epidemics in the Americas

The first sentence reads "After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, some believe that the death of 90–95% of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases" The reference is a PBS article? This seems highly dubious. There must be some better source to get better estimates from. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.123.208.30 (talk) 22:00, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Emergence in 1588 AD

This section is really short and almost feels like it’s out of place with how short it is. I’m not sure if the sentence in that section would be better suited in another section, or maybe someone with the sources could elaborate on this claim. “One viewpoint is that smallpox emerged in 1588 AD and earlier cases were incorrectly identified as smallpox.” Who holds this view (notable scientists)? When did this viewpoint first emerge? Has it been proven or disproven that smallpox only emerged fairly recently? I also feel like the placement of the section itself might be out of place. Maybe it could be moved to just below the lead? Maybe it’s just because the section is really lacking additional information at the moment (and I currently don’t have the sources on hand to add on) , but it feels really jarring where it is now. PaladinSandalphon (talk) 16:43, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree something needs changing here, for the moment I've added an "expand section" template Melias C (talk) 14:27, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

@Melias C, @PaladinSandalphon: When did this viewpoint first emerge This is from a 2016 study, but similar ideas date to at least 1987 (see below). Has it been proven or disproven - the results are valid, but research published since then has shown that it is more complicated (also see below). The sources that were used in the Wikipedia article section can both be found online, here (original url now dead) and here. The authors of the main study "17th Century Variola Virus Reveals the Recent History of Smallpox" (2016), Duggan, Perdomo and colleagues, are well-established as immunologists and geneticists, compare here and here for just the first and second authors.

Earlier mentions of the possibility that smallpox only arose around the 16th century, or that the disease drastically changed genetically around that time, could also be mentioned, to put the 2016 study into context. A good example would be "Smallpox in Europe before the Seventeenth Century: Virulent Killer or Benign Disease?" by Ann G. Carmichael and Arthur M. Silverstein, published in 1987. Also mentioned should be the statement from the 2016 study, that more research is needed to assess whether (A) earlier diseases were erroneously ascribed to smallpox (which is the hypothesis favoured by the authors, and discussed in the National Geographic article), or (B) all but one strand of the virus went extinct before the 16th century (just as the virus spread globally and became much more deadly), leading to the appearance of a young age. The 2016 study gives 1530-1654 as the possible time frame (and 1588-1645, making some further assumptions about the virus's evolution). Clearly, regardless whether or not the virus is young, our understanding of how smallpox became so devastating around 1600 is incomplete.

Since 2016, the Duggan et al. study has been cited more than 100 times,[1], and some further results have come to light. That study has caused quite a stir, but the methods that were used have been accepted as sound. However, the idea that the variola virus as a whole is young appears to be wrong. For example, the 2020 study "Diverse variola virus (smallpox) strains were widespread in northern Europe in the Viking Age", available here, found DNA from the smallpox virus in human remains from the Viking age, dating to the 6th or 7th century CE, quote: "The analysis pushes back the date of the earliest variola infection in humans by ∼1000 years [from the date found by Duggan et al.] and reveals the existence of a previously unknown virus clade." This doesn't contradict the 2016 study. Instead, it shows that possibility (B) appears to be the correct explanation. How it was possible that the modern strand of the virus emerged so recently remains a hotly debated, but ultimately open, question. It is also not clear whether deaths in antiquity that were previously ascribed to smallpox, like in Egyptian mummies or in the Antonine Plague, were really due to the disease, or to a close relative of smallpox (like monkeypox), or to something entirely different (like measles). There is no genetic evidence that supports the hypothesis that these were due to smallpox.

The "emergence in 1588 AD" section has been completely erased from this Wikipedia article in November 2021, by an IP user who stated in their edit summary that "none of this is true LOL", and who apparently doesn't understand statistical error bars.[2] I don't think that's a good solution. The results look strong enough to warrant a mention. I agree it was misplaced after the "Micronesia" section, but that's no cause for removal. I'd rather move it to somewhere more prominent, as it marks an important recent development in our understanding of the history of this disease. Renerpho (talk) 06:10, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

By the way: Nothing in this article that discusses the history of the disease in general dates to after 2013. Given the development over the past decade of how viruses are studied genetically, I'd consider everything stated in this article as out-of-date. Renerpho (talk) 06:33, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

When updating the article, it might be worth adding more recent sources about possible outbreaks of variola in antiquity. A good and relatively recent (published in 2017) source for this is Kyle Harper's "The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire". While it does not incorporate the latest genetic results available at the time of publication (that is, the Duggan study), and outright assumes that smallpox was responsible for the Antonine Plague, it gives a good overview of the effects. As I said, the bulk of the Wikipedia article is about a decade old. The half life of knowledge in the field is shorter than that. Renerpho (talk) 02:07, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I think I have adequately updated the article to address the concerns that led to the "update" tag being placed, so I removed the tag. I integrated conclusions from both the Duggan et al. and the Thèves et al. papers. Duggan shows that most modern strains emerged from a 19th century strain, but doesn't have much to say about the history of the virus before that. Both Duggan and Thèves determine the MRCA of Variola and camelpox is about 4,000 years ago. That leaves a bit of uncertainty as to exactly when Variola first jumped to humans. I left it at that - uncertainty - in the article. IMHO, it is more likely to be closer to 4,000 years ago than to 200 years ago but (as of now) my humble opinion does not count as a reliable source. Someone could flesh these sections out with more of the nuances from this thread - that others have mentioned - if they wished. But maybe we don't need that in Wikipedia. Interested folk can always read the original sources that we cite. And we can keep our eye out for more review papers in the years ahead. Jaredroach (talk) 02:09, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

For completeness sake, I should point out that smallpox could in theory be older than 4,000 years. Variola might have jumped from humans to rodents and/or camels, rather than the other way around. For example, SARS-CoV-2 was transferred by humans to a number of other mammals (and before that, was transferred by another mammal to humans) — all in the space of two years (2019-2021). But that technical detail probably doesn't merit inclusion in the article, at least for now. Jaredroach (talk) 13:41, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Link in lead?

Shouldn't there be a wikilink to Smallpox in the first paragraph of this article? I am not very well-versed in wiki rules but it seems like there should be. Greatapes (talk) 02:53, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Greatapes whilst such a link is common (although it shouldn't be in the bold reiteration of the title at the beginning of the lead) the fact that it states "Main article: Smallpox" above the lead renders such an additional link unnecessary - Arjayay (talk) 09:04, 28 May 2022 (UTC)