Smallpox · The Medicine Chest

Title

Smallpox

Is Part Of

History See all items with this value

Geological Sciences See all items with this value

Pulmonology See all items with this value

Pathology See all items with this value

Human Biology See all items with this value

African Studies See all items with this value

Dermatology See all items with this value

Description

"In Kimberley in 1883-4, several leading doctors with links to the diamond-mining industry publicly denied the presence of smallpox among migrant workers, instead diagnosing them as suffering from a rare skin disease. They appear to have done so lest admitting that the dreaded smallpox was raging, which would have affected the supply of labour and materiel and thereby interrupting mining operations. Led by Cecil Rhodes’s friend, Dr Leander Starr Jameson, measures to curb the epidemic were sporadic or, in the mining compounds, non-existent, and cases topped 2000, with mortality at 3.5 per cent of the population. Only when the colonial government eventually called in external doctors to diagnose the disease, was the cover-up terminated and vaccination, fumigation and isolation vigorously pursued. The conspiracy of denial, by retarding action and sowing doubt about the need to be vaccinated, had been responsible for no small percentage of the 700 deaths in the town" (Phillips 2012: 32-33).

Curriculum

Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air See all items with this value

Creator

Howard Phillips See all items with this value

Date Created

2012

Source

Phillips, H. 2012. Plague, Pox and Pandemics. Auckland Park, South Africa: Jacana Media.

Resonances

university See all items with this value

mining See all items with this value

engineering See all items with this value

gold See all items with this value

diamonds See all items with this value

Mantle Room See all items with this value

male See all items with this value

mineralogy See all items with this value

geology See all items with this value

rock See all items with this value

stone See all items with this value

funding See all items with this value

departments See all items with this value

training See all items with this value

Vaal River See all items with this value

Kimberley See all items with this value

Transvaal See all items with this value

medicine chest See all items with this value

Cecil John Rhodes See all items with this value

De Beers See all items with this value

Sammy Marks See all items with this value

smallpox See all items with this value

vaccination See all items with this value

conspiracy See all items with this value

fumigation See all items with this value

dermatology See all items with this value

Contributor

Nina Liebenberg

Item sets

Curricula

Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air