What did President George Washington do about smallpox ? He followed SCIENCE....

[steve2470]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/george-washington-beat-smallpox-epidemic-with-controversial-inoculations

By then, it was too late for thousands of American troops who marched on Quebec. Their commanding officer, Major General John Thomas, failed to follow Washington’s strict protocols during the ill-fated expedition, and he and one-third to half of his 10,000 soldiers perished from the virus. The force was soundly defeated. “The smallpox is ten times more terrible than Britons, Canadians, and Indians together,” Massachusetts statesman John Adams despairingly wrote in 1776.

As the epidemic spread, Washington decided to act. The following February, he informed Hancock that “I find it impossible to keep it from spreading thro’ the whole Army in the natural way.” He ordered all troops inoculated, noting to his leading medical officer that “necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure.” By the end of 1777, some 40,000 soldiers had been vaccinated.


Historians say the general’s bold move proved critical to the revolution’s success. “A compelling case can be made that his swift response to the smallpox epidemic and to a policy of inoculation was the most important strategic decision of his military career,” historian Joseph Ellis says.

When infection rates dropped from about 20 percent to 1 percent as a result of Washington’s order, even the skeptical Continental Congress was convinced. The lawmakers repealed bans on variolation across the colonies, the first major piece of American public health legislation. And, of course, after winning the war against smallpox, the United States went on to win its fight against Britain and solidify its standing as a new nation.

First referenced here:

[RockRaven]

1. It wasn't *President* George Washington... It was General, at the time.

He wasn't POTUS until a decade-plus after that...

But the main point remains. He made a decision based on evidence and reason and the results were good. This is somehow a controversial idea nowadays amongst ~1/3 of the country.

[wnylib]

2. Vaccination against smallpox

started in North America a century before the Revolution. It was introduced by enslaved Africans who used the scabs of infected persons to inoculate healthy people against the disease. Colonial Puritan minister Cotton Mather learned of this practice by enslaved Africans and advocated for it but most physicians and other white colonists opposed the idea as "barbaric." Mather's advocacy carried little weight with the physicians due to his diminished reputation over the Salem witch hunts.

Gradually, though, as more people successfully tried the practice, it gained acceptance. It took trial and error experimenting to learn how much exposure was good for protection for differences among people (e.g. adults vs. children).

People realized then why people on dairy farms, especially the ones who did the milking, were less susceptible to smallpox. Cowpox is similar enough that frequent exposure to cows provided immunity to smallpox.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. How Crude Smallpox Inoculations Helped George Washington Win the War

I love history. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it

Link to tweet

When George Washington took command of the Continental Army in 1775, America was fighting a war on two fronts: one for independence from the British, and a second for survival against smallpox. Because Washington knew the ravages of the disease firsthand, he understood that the smallpox virus, then an invisible enemy, could cripple his army and end the war before it began.

That’s why Washington eventually made the bold decision to inoculate all American troops who had never been sickened with smallpox at a time when inoculation was a crude and often deadly process. His gamble paid off. The measure staved off smallpox long enough to win a years-long fight with the British. In the process, Washington pulled off the first massive, state-funded immunization campaign in American history......

By the following winter, Washington and his troops were camped in Morristown, New Jersey, where the threat of smallpox was as dire as ever. America’s stoic general waffled back and forth on whether to inoculate or not, even making the mass inoculation order and then rescinding it. Finally, on February 5, 1777, he made the call in a letter to John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress.

“The small pox has made such Head in every Quarter that I find it impossible to keep it from spreading thro’ the whole Army in the natural way. I have therefore determined, not only to innoculate all the Troops now here, that have not had it, but shall order Docr. Shippen to innoculate the Recruits as fast as they come in to Philadelphia.”

Fenn says that inoculating all troops without natural smallpox immunity was a daunting task. First, medical personnel had to examine each individual to determine if they had contracted the disease in the past, then they conducted the risky variolation procedure, followed by a month-long recovery process attended by teams of nurses.

Meanwhile, this entire process—the first of its kind and scale—had to be conducted in total secrecy. If the British caught wind that large numbers of American soldiers were laid up in bed with smallpox, it could be the end.