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smallpox
[ smawl-poks ]
noun
- an acute, highly contagious, febrile disease, caused by the variola virus, and characterized by a pustular eruption that often leaves permanent pits or scars: eradicated worldwide by vaccination programs.
smallpox
/ ˈsmɔːlˌpɒks /
noun
- an acute highly contagious viral disease characterized by high fever, severe prostration, and a pinkish rash changing in form from papules to pustules, which dry up and form scabs that are cast off, leaving pitted depressions Technical namevariola variolous
smallpox
/ smôl′pŏks′ /
- A highly infectious and often fatal disease caused by the variola virus of the genus Orthopoxvirus and characterized by fever, headache, and severely inflamed skin sores that result in extensive scarring. Once a dreaded killer of children that caused the deaths of millions of Native Americans after the arrival of European settlers in the Americas, smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980 following a worldwide vaccination campaign. Samples of the virus have been preserved in laboratories in the United States and Russia.
- Also called variola
- See Note at Jenner
smallpox
- An acute and infectious disease caused by a virus and now almost completely eradicated. Smallpox was characterized by high fever and large sores on the body that leave scars.
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Notes
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Word History and Origins
Origin of smallpox1
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Example Sentences
The commander of the Continental Army realized that if he did not inoculate his army against smallpox, he might not have an army.
In many places, it was custom to place huts outside the villages for smallpox victims.
For example, vaccinia immune globulin, or VIG, is stored and ready for the next person who becomes ill from smallpox vaccine.
In the 18th century, German immigrants coming to Pennsylvania boarded ships plagued with typhus, dysentery, smallpox, and scurvy.
Shoham adds without substantive evidence that “Syrian possession of the smallpox virus is likely.”
To-day men of science are trying to conquer the horrors of cancer and smallpox, and rabies and consumption.
This barkeeper had not been exposed to smallpox except by contact with the man mentioned here.
The unharmed had been present in sick-rooms or had even nursed the patients, not knowing that the disease was smallpox.
It does more: in 90 per centum of cases it will prevent successful infection with smallpox.
The mildest smallpox in one person can cause malignant smallpox in another, and vice versa.
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