Twenty years before Edward Jenner discovered that Cowpox inoculation prevented smallpox infection, there were smallpox inoculations going on, with live smallpox bacteria. This is what George Washington ordered for his troops. This is what Abigail Adams ordered for herself and her children. Your body was hopefully going to have a weaker case of smallpox, fight it off, and then you would be immune for the rest of your life. Or you would die.
The video is from the John Adams biopic. The horror and the bravery come, not from the fear of the unknown.. but from the fear of the very perfectly known.
When I was 4 years old, watching the nightly news, they announced the Salk vaccine against polio. My parents hugged each other and cried… and I did not know… then… why. Virtually no one younger than me has any idea of what a pandemic means. So many of our fellow Americans are acting from ignorance. They seem to feel being disease free is their natural right, and not the product of 250 years of scientific research.
And obviously, back then, “Patriots” were not blubbering sissies.