Epidemiology smallpox

Henderson, D. A. (1999). Smallpox Clinical and epidemiologic features. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 5, 537-539. 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Immunization Program. Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Illnesses. Chapter 19, Smallpox 281-306, The Pink Book. Updated Eighth Edition, 2005, http //www.cdc.gov/nip/publi-cations/pink/smallpox.pdf... 

Compulsory vaccination against smallpox was established by the Vaccination Act of 1853 after the report compiled by the Epidemiological Society on the state of vaccination following the first Vaccination Act of 1840. The 1840 Act had provided free vaccination for the poor to be administered by the Poor Law Guardians. 

Historically, epidemiology originated in relation to the study of the great epidemic diseases such as cholera, bubonic plague, (often referred to as Black Death in the Middle Ages) smallpox, yellow fever and typhus. These disease were associated with high mortality and, until the twentieth century, were the most important threats to life. 

Vaccination. Vaccines are the quintessential product of applied epidemiology. Vaccination against smallpox has heen one of the great public-health successes of the modern era. The last reported case of smallpox transmitted through human contact occurred in a Somali village in 1977. 

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