The decline of adult smallpox in eighteenth-century London1

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3376248
AutoresRomola J Davenport (0000-0002-6828-9846, University of Cambridge), Romola Davenport (University of Cambridge), Leonard Schwarz (0000-0003-2567-0986, University of Birmingham), Jeremy Boulton (Newcastle University)
Año2011
Volumen64
Número4
Páginas1289-1314
Fecha de publicación2011-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-0289.2011.00599.x
PMID22171404
OpenAlexW1937636272
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas16
Referencias citadas47

Smallpox was probably the single most lethal disease in eighteenth-century Britain, but was a minor cause of death by the mid-nineteenth century. Although vaccination was crucial to the decline of smallpox, especially in urban areas, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, it remains disputed the extent to which smallpox mortality declined before vaccination. Analysis of age-specific changes in smallpox burials within the large west London parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a precipitous reduction in adult smallpox risk from the 1770s, and this pattern was duplicated in the east London parish of St Dunstan's. Most adult smallpox victims were rural migrants, and such a drop in their susceptibility is consistent with a sudden increase in exposure to smallpox in rural areas. We investigated whether this was due to the spread of inoculation, or an increase in smallpox transmission, using changes in the age patterns of child smallpox burials. Smallpox mortality rose among infants, and smallpox burials became concentrated at the youngest ages, suggesting a sudden increase in infectiousness of the smallpox virus. Such a change intensified the process of smallpox endemicization in the English population, but also made cities substantially safer for young adult migrants

Biology · Geography · Population · Smallpox · Smallpox vaccine · Smallpox virus · Sociology · Vaccination · Vaccinia · Variola virus · Demography · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Medicine · Virology · Zoonotic diseases and public health