In a recent column, Cecil talked about Europeans occasionally giving a small-pox infected blanket to Native Americans. I thought that the small-pox virus was transmitted only by direct human contact. How long can it survive on a blanket?
In his column, Did whites ever give Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox? (24-Oct-1997), Cecil says that there’s no definitive proof that the method was ever employed.
But viruses have a protective protein cover (called a capsid) that should enable them to survive in adverse conditions for a while. Enteroviruses (viruses of the digestive tract) like the polio virus are ingested orally, but are resistant to stomach acids and thus reach the intestinal tract.
According to some histories of the Acadiens (many of whom became our modern Cajuns) they were supplied with small-pox infected blankets by the British officers on some of the ships used to ‘relocate’ them.
Don’t know if it’s true or not.
Some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the hydrant.
It is true, too, that SmallpPox is more stable than many other viruses. I read recently that if a person who died from Smallpox were exhumed intact (from frozen ground, presumably), there could be a risk of unleashing it again - more so than with some other viruses.
Interestingly, I picked up a brochure in my local pharmacy yesterday on “Childhood Vaccinations.” In it was a list of “common communicable diseases in children,” how long symptoms lasted, how long till they can go back to school, etc. Smallpox was on the list! I informed the pharmacist that Smallpox has been eradicated in the wild (two known stockpiles in labs in Atlanta and somewhere in Russia), and that children are no longer immunized against it. He argued, insisting that there have been recent outbreaks.
Jill
“If the smallpox virus is deposited onto warm damp items, such as clothing or blankets, it can remain infectious for up to one year.”
This quote taken from “First Contact: Smallpox,” an essay by Keith Thor Carlson, which can be viewed here: http://web20.mindlink.net/stolo/firstcon.htm
This essay relates the story of the transmission of smallpox between Euroamericans and the Stó:lo peoples. The author suggests that the contact was passive in this case. It also relates the transmission of the disease through various other communities, including aboriginal and chinook. Other diseases are discussed as well, including mumps, measles, etc. and their devastating effects.
Any similarities between your reality and mine are purely coincidental.