Posted on 05/19/2011 5:41:52 AM PDT by Red Badger
RICHMOND, Va. - An outbreak of smallpox was the furthest thing from historian Dr. Paul Levengood's mind when his staff at the Virginia Historical Society put together an exhibit of "bizarre bits" that were added to the society's collection since its founding in 1831, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
There was Confederate president Jefferson Davis's cigar, confiscated by Union troops. There was a fungus carving of Robert E. Lee on his horse, Traveller, and a wreath made of human hair.
Then someone mentioned a letter, handwritten and dated 1876, with what appeared to be a smallpox scab pinned inside -- light brown, about the size of a pencil eraser and crumbling.
The scab got the attention of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), home to one of the world's two known caches of live smallpox viruses.
Alerted by a government scientist in Maryland who was concerned that the scab might transmit infection, the agency dispatched two CDC representatives to Richmond. They donned disposable surgical gowns and gloves, lifted the scab from a display case, sealed it in bio-bags inside a red cooler and whisked it back to a high-security lab deep within the CDC's Atlanta headquarters.
Scabs -- pieces of desiccated skin that contain white blood cells, viruses and other material -- were used in the 19th century to vaccinate people against smallpox. They were inserted into small breaks in the skin, prompting the body to build an immune response.
The scab the CDC retrieved from Virginia was mailed from a son to his father. "Dear Pa ... the piece I inclose is perfectly fresh and was taken from an infant's arm yesterday," read the letter. "Dr. Harris says the inclosed scab will vaccinate 12 persons, but if you want more, you must send for it. I will pin this to the letter so that you cannot lose it as you did before."
Museum officials said they were not worried about infection because a medical historian told them years ago that old scabs degrade. "Our strong assumption was that it was not a danger," Levengood said.
When the CDC retrieved the scab, they assured historical society staff that the chances of infection appeared low. Staff locked it in the trunk of their car and drove straight to Atlanta, a nine-hour trip.
Clad in pressurized moon suits in the high-security, BSL-4 lab, CDC microbiologists determined within a few hours that the scab contained virus from the smallpox vaccine but did not contain the deadly disease virus itself. They have since moved the scab, which was irradiated, to a medium-security lab.
Bureaucrats are incapable of thinking for themselves.
They were all out of Bubonic plague and had to make do with what they had...
I’ve often wondered if these museums all over the world might actually harbor some virus that we lost our immunity to ages ago. Would make a good movie plot..............
Hm. Call it “Nightmare at the Museum”?
Good one!.....................
A “SCAB” museum. Who da thunk it?
Just once I’d like my home town to make the news for something good. Just once...
It’s always a story like murdering the bear at Maymont, rioting over free Macbooks, or potentially exposing people to smallpox.
*Sigh*
what....a thread about 135 year old skin and not a single Helen Thomas photo??
Unfortunately, it's kind of difficult to tell the difference, and, of course, everybody knows there are only two collections of smallpox on Earth ~ here and 1 in Russia.
So, one daysomebody got antsy. CDC's experts are "more sensitive" to potential risk so they got it, checked it, and said "Yup, that's what it wuz".
My first run in with CDC folks occurred when our office was supposed to come up with a plan for ACCEPTANCE of and DELIVERY of all those nasty samples that show up at various testing laboratories, or CDC centers around the company.
UNBELIEVABLY CDC, and others, routinely wrapped, stacked and sent samples of "stuff" through the mail!
Following the old dicta that if you don't mark it nobody will know ~ which reduces the chance of purposeful damage/sabotage by someone ~ they didn't mark their stuff and nobody knew.
Down in Atlanta the CDC would come to the post office to pick up the daily samples that'd come in the ordinary mail with your bill payments and birthday cards, and the Sears Ads.
CDC sent a specially prepared vehicle with a super-strength titanium reinforced containment vessel. They'd hop out in their "space suits", go to the back dock to get their sack of mail, then dump it in a hole in the containment vessel.
They'd give the sack back to the post office!
Oh, yeah!!!!
There were samples of Ebola virus, Dengue fever, Histoplasmosis, Smallpox(possibles), and other incredible diseases coming right through the mail in envelopes, small paper bags, and boxes.
This stuff was considered too dangerous for CDC personnel to handle OUTSIDE of a Class 4 laboratory environment.
Let me tell you, USPS got on that RIGHT AWAY and some serious changes were made.
Then there was all that stuff going to private labs ~ the sticks with fecal matter on them ~ you know them well I am sure!
Just going willy nilly through the mail, and then being handled by the recipients like DYNAMITE.
That stuff got fixed too. Then "sharps" ~ that got fixed.
Our office was stacked with hundreds of different kinds of containers folks wanted to be made MANDATORY for use.
In the end some specifications and procedures were worked up, safe handling requirements were developed, and all was well.
CDC's guys in Atlanta still send the guys in the space suits with the containment vessel to the post office every day, but the "other guys" get the good stuff now ~ right next to your Famous Amos cookies (bwahahahahahah). Some stuff just doesn't belong in the mail.
It says the scab was taken from an infant's arm. Helen would have been a teenager by then.
“There was Confederate president Jefferson Davis’s cigar...”
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In our pussified, ridiculously overly cautious society, I’m surprised that discovery didn’t shut down the entire state.
Not just demon tobacco, but from a politically incorrect, white Christian southern “racist”.
It’s in Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy..................
So the liberals, and their revisionist history, haven’t taken over Richmond like they have every other large city, then?
Since this is the Virginia Historical Society, I’d be surprised if there were any liberal revisionists there..............
Since this is the Virginia Historical Society, I’d be surprised if there were any liberal revisionists there..............
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I wouldn’t know about that organization in particular, I would hope they are diligently committed to upholding Virginia’s remarkable history with a proper time context.
I do know that nationwide, those types of organizations are often supported by rich white liberals with an agenda, and that sadly, Virginia as a whole, is no longer the bastion of conservatism that it once was.
So, no, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if, like the rest of the country, there are historically ignorant, big mouthed propagandists in Virginia, at universities, in elected office, and in “Societies” perfectly willing to shat upon the state’s history, and view it through the lens of modern revisionism.
That may be true in northern states, but The South still vehemently guards its history and cultural icons................
Locally, where I live, Fairfax County's history is, interestingly enough, the history of George Washington, George Mason, the Lewis family, the Lee family, etc.
We just spent the day yesterday wandering around Mount Vernon taking a look at some new facilities there.
You can feel George Washington in the air, and there, off in the distance Admiral de Grasse keeps the blockade intact and no enemy warships make it up the Potomac. Lafayette is sitting at the main table, writing a letter to his other cousin, Rouchambeau, and all is right with the world. Martha putters around upstairs tending to the master bedroom.
One can only begin to imagine what's stored away in the nooks, crannies and recesses of the Mutter Museum.
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