George Washington traveled widely in what would become the United States. The disease wiped out large populations throughout history but today has been eradicated due to the heroic efforts of public health workers. If an attack of smallpox didn’t kill you (and in Washington’s era it often did) then the pox skin lesions would turn to scabs, fall off and leave deep-pitted scars. It causes fever, headache, back pain and red spots on the skin, which turn to blisters filled with clear fluid and then pus. It is typically spread by face-to-face contact between people. Smallpox is a highly contagious disease caused by the variola virus. So much for modern-day anti-vaxxers who say that requiring the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment, school attendance or military service is un-American. Some politicians and pundits have recently become aware of a historical fact that I have been teaching in my first-year medical school history of medicine course for years: Among the first American proponents of mandatory medical therapy to prevent viral infection was George Washington.
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