Smallpox

To my knowledge no pandemics of smallpox took place in the region of Latvia during the reference period since 1800, though local epidemics of smallpox ocurred during the 19th century. The disease existed till 1940 or even later. In any case, I personally have seen few people with pockmarked faces, including some of my schoolmates. It seems however, that between the both World Wars the cases of smallpox were rare (see the morbidity statistics), but during the WW2 the disease widespread again.

The fact is that I became interested in smallpox, because some information about the fight against this disease was found in the memoirs of Samuel Strauch. In these texts S.Strauch described the births of his five children and also mentioned that they were inoculated against smallpox. All his children were inoculated by Doctor Carl Ludwig Rhode.

In the following table the births dates and inoculation dates of the children are compiled:

I think it is interesting that E.Jenner discovered the well-known method of vaccination with cowpox in 1796. A.Viksna in his paper in Dabas un vestures kalendars 1981 informs that the first vaccination in Riga took place on November 27, 1800 and was performed by Otto Huhn who later (1803) created a special organization for vaccination.

So, what actually Dr. Rhode did when he inoculated Anna Elisabeth Strauch in 1798 when nobody in Riga knew about vaccination? Evidently he used an older method to prevent smallpox. The method was called variolation and consisted in inoculation of patients with living though weakened smallpox virus. The people who survived the infection were immune for life.

The variolation was known in Russia. The first doctor who performed the variolation in the Russia Empire was August Schulin in Tartu [Dorpat] in 1756. The Tzarin Catherine II was inoculated with smallpox in 1768 and accepted the variolation for the Empire. Evidently Dr. C.L.Rhode had information about this method. It remains unknown which method he used later for the second and the next children of S.Strauch.

In 1802 Tzar Alexander I issued an order for the total vaccination in the Empire. However it was not easy to achieve. Some information about the start of the vaccination in Vidzeme [Livland] province is available in the Page about persuading campaign of Latvian peasants. In 1808 about 1/6 of newborn babies were vaccinated. At the end of the 19^th century the vaccination against smallpox was organized not so badly. In the Baltic provinces the Priests of all the Churches were regularly inquired by local doctors about the newborn babies to vaccinate them (well, may be not always that regularly inquired and that obligatory vaccinated). One of the documents related to this activity you can read in another Page.

I have some more documents concerning this system to publish later.