Variolation is an outdated medical technique that was used to protect people from smallpox.Doctors haven’t practiced the technique since the 19th century, though, when it was replaced with a ...

The last known case of smallpox was diagnosed on October 26th, 1977. Records indicate that variolation was first practiced by the Chinese as early as the 15th century. They practiced variolation by ...

Smallpox was eradicated in 1977. This amazing, global public health achievement isn’t just a page in a history book or an ...

ANSWER: This is indeed the history of smallpox prevention prior to vaccination, which was developed by Edward Jenner in 1796. Variolation (the name comes from “variola,” the Latin name for ...

Variolation, as the method came to be known, involved pulverizing smallpox scabs or pus from an infected individual to be sniffed up the nose or scratched into the skin.

Before the smallpox vaccine existed, variolation – direct exposure to smallpox sores – was the usual immunization method. Material from smallpox sores was inhaled or rubbed into the skin.

The specific term for what Lady Mary and Boylston were doing 75 years earlier is variolation, or inoculation with variola, the smallpox virus. "Their story got swept under the rug after Jenner.

West Africans were not the only ones to practice smallpox inoculations before the 1700s. There are numerous accounts of North African, Arabian, and East Asian inoculators as well.

Smallpox killed 3 in 10, until the first vaccines conquered it. A gruesome killer for centuries, smallpox did not discriminate—killing kings and commoners alike—until an English doctor found a ...