Comment Re:Two? (Score 1) 440
So you're saying that the people who deliberately exposed the native americans to smallpox did the same to themself? Doesn't that imply that they were not trying to kill them with it, but inoculate them?
From your wikipedia link : "Infection via inhaled viral particles in droplets spread the infection more widely than the deliberate infection through a small skin wound. The smaller, localised infection is adequate to stimulate the immune system to produce specific immunity to the virus, while requiring more generations of the virus to reach levels of infection likely to kill the patient. The rising immunity terminates the infection. So the twofold effect is to ensure the less fatal form of the disease is the one caught, and to give the immune system the best start possible in combating it."
No one knew for certain anything about germs and the transmission of diseases then, and like I said, the miasma theory was still mainstream.