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CMAJ • December 14, 1999; 161 (12)
© 1999 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors

Medicine in Canada

Smallpox and its control in Canada

John W.R. McIntyre, MB BS and C. Stuart Houston, MD

Dr. McIntyre (deceased) was Professor Emeritus of Anaesthesia, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta. Dr. Houston is Professor Emeritus of Medical Imaging, University of Saskatchewan, 863 University Dr., Saskatoon SK S7N 0J8; houstons{at}duke.usask.ca

Abstract

Edward Jenner's first treatise in 1798 described how he used cowpox material to provide immunity to the related smallpox virus. He sent this treatise and some cowpox material to his classmate John Clinch in Trinity, Nfld., who gave the first smallpox vaccinations in North America. Dissemination of the new technique, despite violent criticism, was rapid throughout Europe and the United States. Within a few years of its discovery, vaccination was instrumental in controlling small-pox epidemics among aboriginal people at remote trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. Arm-to-arm transfer at 8-day intervals was common through most of the 19th century. Vaccination and quarantine eliminated endemic smallpox throughout Canada by 1946. The last case, in Toronto in 1962, came from Brazil.