Viruses, Variolation & Vaccines (Part 7)

“We ran out of time.”

Jun 4, 2022

In order to convey to the reader what I believe to be the truth behind the smallpox story, I am taking a different approach than usual in this final instalment of Viruses, Variolation & Vaccines. If you imagine that the plan I discussed in Part 6 was conceived by an individual, an architect if you will, then this dialogue should make sense. I hope so.

Thanks for agreeing to talk to me about your plan.

I did not have much choice. But here I am. So ask your questions.

Sure. Will you tell me something about the task you took on?

My brief was to come up with a mechanism that would enable the client to control everyone, not just a few, and not just for a while, but everyone, forever.

What is this mechanism exactly?

It requires an unlikely marriage between two quite different components. Although it has been in the pipeline for a very long time, only now is it being discussed openly.

Yes, recently I came across a reference to it:

Biometric sensors and direct brain-computer interfaces aim to erode the border between electronic machines and organic bodies, and to literally get under our skin. Once the tech-giants come to terms with the human body, they might end up manipulating our entire bodies in the same way they currently manipulate our eyes, fingers and credit cards.
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It is framed here as a warning about something that might or might not happen one day. But that is misleading. Harari is not speculating about the future. Things are much further advanced than he says.

But what has this to do with smallpox, never mind vaccines or variolation?

To use Harari’s words, I proposed a way to “erode the border between electronic machines and organic bodies”. We may not have had “biometric sensors” back then, but we came “to terms with the human body” a long time ago. Assuming that the technology would be ready when it was needed, I believed my plan to “get under” the skin and into the human bloodstream would work. And the client agreed.

Hence smallpox?

Smallpox was a means to an end. Variolation was the real breakthrough.

Yes, I’ve described it in a previous instalment.

Variolation showed that, if the motivation was strong enough, ordinary people were prepared to allow virtually anything into their bodies.

And that motivation was fear?

Essentially yes. As you described, smallpox was a dreaded disease. Yet even I was surprised at how far people would go in order to prevent it. But you have not described the full variolation procedure, have you?

No, I concentrated on the basic steps of inoculation itself, which I think are dreadful enough without going into the rest. Nevertheless we have a pretty vivid description of the whole business which, in the case of eight-year-old Edward Jenner, lasted six weeks.

As Edward Jenner is a crucial figure in this story, perhaps you would elaborate?

This account of what the boy went through has been passed down to us by Reverend Thomas D. Fosbroke, a friend of Jenner’s:

He was bled, to ascertain whether his blood was fine; was purged repeatedly, till he became emaciated and feeble; was kept on very low diet, small in quantity, and dosed with a diet-drink to sweeten the blood. After this barbarism of human-veterinary practice he was removed to one of the then usual inoculation stables, and haltered up with others in a terrible state of disease, although none died.
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Terrible as that was, it worked. Jenner never had smallpox.

I can see why you were surprised at people’s willingness to go through this ordeal themselves, or to inflict it on a helpless child. Yet by the end of the 18th century variolation had become widely accepted as the best safeguard against smallpox, hadn’t it?

Yes, it is impossible to overstate the importance of this achievement. If people were not only willing, but eager, to have a potentially deadly poison inserted under their skin, then we were more than halfway to our goal.

But why smallpox? You could have targeted leprosy, typhus, bubonic plague, or any of the other deadly diseases that have wiped out millions of people, couldn’t you?

No. Smallpox was the only one that had all the characteristics we needed. The important point is that variolation had been accepted. It was time for the next phase.

The vaccine?

Yes. But the vaccine was not just an improved version of variolation. It had to be regarded by everyone as the default means of preventing the horrors of smallpox. But there were plenty of other horrors for people to contend with - not just disease. For those without much money, life was short and pretty grim while it lasted. So we had to overcome lots of distractions and obstacles.

How did you do that?

We made sure that everyone, especially the poor, was coerced or browbeaten into having their children vaccinated. This was vital because, after a generation or two, the vaccine would come to be seen as a normal step, like registering a new birth, which people took without giving it much thought. And so it transpired. But a few resisted and we needed to ensure that, when the time came, everyone would agree to have the mechanism of control inserted under their skin. That was the primary goal after all.

So what did you do?

Smallpox was still our focus. Don’t forget that the vaccine was being pitched as the preventative antidote for this one disease. All we had to do was prove the vaccine’s effectiveness beyond any doubt. As you know, Jenner predicted that his vaccine would rid the world of smallpox. Two centuries later, in 1980, that very outcome was announced to the world.

Since then the story of smallpox eradication has been told again and again in order to imprint on everyone’s mind the efficacy of vaccination as the best means of protecting public health. Only recently the WHO declared that “Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in human history”, and described their role in exterminating smallpox as a “scientific triumph”.

You’re right. When you put it like that, smallpox was tailor-made for your plan. If you had actually created it for your own purposes it could not have been better.

Indeed.

So when the vaccine arrived, you combined legal enforcement, social pressure, and a smidgen of “science”, to bring everyone on board. Once vaccines were developed for other diseases, it remained only for a worldwide pandemic to hit us and your “mechanism of control” would have become a reality. But something went wrong, didn’t it?

Yes. We ran out of time.

How? Why?

A number of reasons, but I can explain it best through an analogy. You’re familiar with the story of Princess Rose-Bud, better known as the Sleeping Beauty?

I’m sure most people are.

Fine. I’ll keep it brief. While the princess was still a baby, a disgruntled fairy prophesied that a fatal accident would kill her when she reached 15 years of age. Another fairy modified the curse so that the child would not die, but instead fall into a deep sleep for 100 years. On her 15th birthday the prophecy was fulfilled. Not only did the princess go asleep, so too did her parents, the king and queen, and everyone else in the royal household. Even the animals and insects fell into the same trance that overtook every living thing within the palace walls. The years went by and, a century later, a passing prince found the enchanted castle and went inside. He woke the sleeping princess and it was as if the spell had been broken. Slowly but surely everyone came back to their senses and life returned to the palace.

So are you saying that you had a predetermined length of time in which to implement your plan - and you missed the deadline?

Something like that.

If the timeframe did not change, did something delay you?

I have told you as much as you need to know. You can make whatever assumptions you like about these matters.

But what about right now? We seem to be in a “limbo” period when things could go either way. Is it only a temporary respite before the enslavement project gets back on track, or has it been defeated once and for all?

Look, I have answered all your questions about my plan. I really have to go now.

Hold on. You have already admitted that you ran out of time. All I’m asking now is that you shed a little light on what this means for us all.

OK, here is a more modern story than Sleeping Beauty. A bit closer to the actuality too.

I’m listening.

Imagine a hospital in which a lengthy and complex operation is being carried out. In the theatre are the lead surgeon and his assistants, several nurses, the anaesthetist, and of course the unconscious patient. There is a viewing room above the operating theatre in which various senior medics and hospital management are observing the proceedings below. Then disaster strikes. A nurse has spotted a tremor on the patient’s face and a movement in his hand. She realises that he is beginning to wake up while the operation is still underway! She immediately tells her colleagues.

So what does everyone do?

There are different reactions. The surgeons speed up in the hope that they can finish the procedure before the patient is fully conscious. Upstairs an executive is on the phone to the hospital’s lawyers looking for their advice in case the patient decides to sue. A senior consultant is rushing down to the theatre to help ease the mounting panic. The patient’s wife has heard the commotion and is pounding on the door of the operating theatre. Meanwhile the anaesthetist realises that he cannot put the patient back to sleep because the drugs he needs have all been used. What a pickle! Should he tell the others that the patient will be fully conscious soon? Or can he quietly slip out of the theatre while no one is looking?

Who are you in this story? The surgeon? The anaesthetist?

Oh, is that the time? I must be gone.

History In The Making

Viruses, Variolation & Vaccines (Part 7)

“We ran out of time.”