Smallpox

[W. Gray]

HBO is now running a seven part miniseries about John Adams, the second president.

An interesting scene occurred in part II, shown last night. A small pox epidemic hit the area surrounding Adam's Massachusetts farm.

John Adams was away in Philadelphia as a member of the Continental Congress.

Abigail Adams was at home with the couple's four children. A doctor arrived driving a horse cart in which an advanced smallpox patient was lying on a load of hay.

The doctor used a scalpel like knife to cut into several of the small pox blisters on the patient. He gathered the semi fluid mass from each blister on a tin plate and mixed them together.

He took the plate and contents into the house. With Abigail seated, he cut what looked to be a two inch incision on her left arm. He then took the scalpel and inserted a marble size portion of the small pox mass into the incision.

The doctor then attended to each child.

One of the Adams females, either Abigail or a daughter, had a breast surgically removed in 1811 as the result of cancer.

Small pox vaccinations in 1776 and breast mastectomies in 1811...

[Lookatmeknow!!]

This show does look really interesting.  I don't have showtime, though.    I am sure that they will run reruns or it will be out on DVD sometime to watch.

[Diane Amberg]

We are watching it on  home box. I could have sworn small pox vaccine was originally made from cow pox.  The milk maids would get it from infected cows, but they never got small pox.  Cow pox was much milder.  Am I wrong?

[W. Gray]

Diane,

I think you might be correct.

I was amazed to see this procedure. I have read the book the series is based on (some time ago, though) and don't recall this procedure described. But, I did not go back to check either.

Don't you think they are making George Washington out to be some sort of a dummy?

Also, I will bet in real life his uniform did not look that snappy.

[Teresa]

Kjell and I are religiously and with rapt attention watching and devouring every single episode of John Adams on Sunday nights. We have  each episode on our DVR and when all is done ,we will make a copy of the whole thing on DVD for our collection. Kjell is an avid history buff, and I have to say, that I have learned more in the last year about history by watching these types of historically correct movies that I ever did in boring high school. I think that if they would put these types of movies in from of the kids at school , every child would be begging for more history knowledge.

Waldo.. The best ones we have seen is the ones that Kjell bought through the internet off the History Channel site.  Called "The Revolution". There is 13 episodes. They were off I-Tunes...cost like 1.99 each .. You can also buy it as a DVD set.
They are absolutely awesome. He said that they were the best he has ever seen and I have to agree (although my history experience  is limited...
They are so  interesting and everything is exactly correct in them . I even got popcorn and we just kicked back in our office chairs and "watched tv"..

Check it out.. If you like history.. You will be glued to your seat.

http://www.history.com/minisites/revolution

[W. Gray]

Yes, I caught all thirteen on the original go around.

Another good movie about the birth of the US is the musical called 1776 released in 1976.

The History Channel also has a very good historical series about WWII going on right now called Battle 360, airing on Friday nights. There is only one commercial interruption.

[W. Gray]

It has often been said that Ben Franklin liked the ladies. He once wrote in a letter to a friend that the older they were , the more grateful they were and the more likely they were not about to talk about it.

In the John Adams series, Adams accompanied Benjamin Franklin to France during the days after the Declaration of Independence an effort to seek financial assistance for the Revolutionary War.

One day, a French woman patted on Franklin's ample potbelly and joked that if his stomach were on a woman, they would all know what to think. Franklin replied that thirty minutes prior it had been on a woman.

The two men were staying in the King's palace. One afternoon, Adams could not wait to talk to Franklin about an important letter he had just received from the Continental Congress.

Adams started to Franklin's room but was told by an aide that Franklin had left instructions he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.

John Adams would have nothing of it and barged into Ben's room. Benjamin Franklin, in his early 70s, was in a bathtub with an elderly French woman.

Incidentally, on this trip, John Adams was accompanied by an eleven year who became the sixth president of the United States. The child was John Quincy, his son.

[frawin]

Sounds like Franklin could have been a President with his background, like Kennedy, Clinton and a few others. 
Frank

[archeobabe]

Battle 360 is very interesting and very disturbing.  There is some action from our part during WWII that was not in history books or mention in the newsreels.

[W. Gray]

I suspect you are talking about the American sailors who took target practice against surviving Japanese sailors and soldiers shooting them with rifles while they were swimming around in the water.

I first heard about that several years ago and was appalled. I still cringe when I see it.

I do not know if this was an isolated incident or part of an improvised strategic plan. Never heard it mentioned one way or another.

It may not appear justifiable and as barbaric as it sounds, there could have been some logic employed.

The American Navy destroyed those eleven Japanese troop transports close to landfall. There were 7,000 men on the eleven ships. The Japanese mission was to reinforce Japan forces on Guadalcanal with those men and finish off the Americans, who held only the airfield and a small perimeter.

If there was wholesale target shooting, that may or may not have occurred to prevent those survivors from getting to land and actually succeeding in reinforcing Japanese forces, who were already taking a heavy toll on Henderson Field.

The Japanese had earlier succeeded in getting large quantities of military supplies ashore. Japanese troop survivors could have been easily reequipped and put into battle.