re: #73 EmmmieG

Which is why milkmaids were supposed to have such great complexions—cowpox did not leave the terrible scars that small pox did.

One more piece of meaningless historical trivia: Benjamin Franklin was a believer in immunization for smallpox, but failed to immunize his own son Josiah in time. He regretted it greatly.

That smallpox immunization was often fatal in itself and at that time was a very new and risky procedure. The John Adams movie had a great scene about this with pus being scraped from a dead woman and pressed into a cut on the recipient being immunized. It was very gross.