Vaccination Prevents Smallpox - pamphlet

Pamphlet encouraging vaccination against smallpox; also includes information on how people contract smallpox and who is most susceptible.

Florida State Board of Health

State Archives of Florida, Series S908

1950 (circa)

pamphlets

eng-US

Text

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Postwar Florida (1945-1968)

Jacksonville (Fla.)

Duval County (Fla.)

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mid 20th-century

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Health and Safety

The Only Protection Against Smallpox is Vaccination

THE CHILD should be vaccinated at or before the first birthday and again upon entering school. Two successful "takes" will probably protect for life. However, during an epidemic persons who have not been successfully vaccinated within five years should be revaccinated without delay. If smallpox be of the virulent type all persons not successfully vaccinated within one year should be vaccinated at once.

Everyone
is
Susceptible
to
Smallpox


Vaccination
PREVENTS SMALLPOX

FLORIDA STATE BOARD OF HEALTH
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA

Vaccination prevents Smallpox

PRIOR to the eighteenth century smallpox was one of the most prevalent and most dreaded of all diseases. Only about five persons out of a hundred escaped smallpox and one-fourth of those who contracted the disease died. Those who recovered from smallpox usually were disfigured for life. Following Jenner's epochal discovery of vaccination in 1796 the incidence of smallpox took a sharp drop, and, today, because of vaccination, most people have never seen a case of smallpox.
IN THOSE countries where vaccination is required by law, smallpox has become a rare disease. States with compulsory vaccination laws have practically no smallpox. On the other hand, states that do not require vaccination have so many cases that the United States as a whole has more smallpox than any other country of the world, except India. Smallpox has been constantly present in Florida because vaccination is not required by law.

How do people contract Smallpox?

SMALLPOX is contracted by coming in contact with a person who is sick with the disease. The disease is spread mainly by direct personal contact. The infection probably enters the body through the respiratory tract. The secretions from the mouth and nose contain the virus (germ) as do the skin lesions.

Who is most likely to catch Smallpox?

SMALLPOX is one of the most readily communicable of all diseases. In this regard it ranks with measles and influenza. Smallpox is a disease to which everyone is susceptible. There is no such thing as inherited immunity against smallpox. Young and old, rich and poor, clean and unclean are attacked alike. Smallpox occurs by actual contact with a case and spreads in an unvaccinated community.