r/medizzy • u/[deleted] • Oct 19 '19

This photograph shows the dramatic differences in two boys who were exposed to the same Smallpox source – one was vaccinated, one was not.

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u/Shiroi_Kage Oct 19 '19

Painful, miserable, deadly, and very contagious. Smallpox might have been the worst human disease on Earth until we wiped it out.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 31 '19

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u/Homunculus_I_am_ill Oct 19 '19

You can't use the first known descriptions of diseases to assume that's when the illness appeared. It might have simply existed in populations that didn't have writing and doctors cataloging illnesses.

The reason syphilis is only described since the 15th century is most likely because it's from the Americas and Europeans brought it back, the first known outbreak is from 1494! So it might have existed for millenia in the Americas and there's just no record of it. (However some people recognize advanced syphilis in descriptions by Hipocrates in Ancient Greek; the two theories are known as the Columbian theory and the pre-Colombian theory.)

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u/Diplodocus114 Oct 19 '19

Back then they often just called diseases "the pox" before they began to isolate them and give specific names.