Slashdot Mirror
Smallpox From The Past
An anonymous reader submits "Earlier this year, librarian Susanne Caro was looking through an 1888 book on United States Civil War medicine and discovered a small envelope labeled 'scabs from vaccination of W.B. Yarrington's children' and signed by Dr. W.D. Kelly, the author of the book. After a bit of research, she realized they might be smallpox scabs used in early live vaccination methods and contacted various officials including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC was excited by the find, because it gives them an untreated specimen from over a century ago, and a chance to look at the disease's evolution. Although the FBI had concerns that the smallpox may have been planted in the book, most of the researchers believe the scabs are too old to be dangerous, and they fear they may not even be able to yield live smallpox."
Sounds creepily like the beginning of a Robin Cook novel...
Because I would hate to contract small pox just for working during a strike...
About the only time you will find scabs in a book and be excited about it. Mostly you'd say "Ok, I'm only going to buy NEW from now on".
graspee
It's largepox you should be afraid of.
One more reason to have the government tightly control what books you check out.
Libraries are a breeding ground for terrorists, I tell you.
Hey, are these raisins? *munch*
Pelé!
From the article:
the envelope rests in a freezer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, awaiting a battery of tests.
Yes, after lying in a library book for 115 years I can see why is important that it be frozen now.
What a wonderful idea for a time capsule that would be. Create a time capsule to be opened in hundreds or thousands of years and place in it some of the diseases which may have died off by then and which the generations of the future will not have had the chance to enjoy.
Infectious disease: The gift that keeps on giving.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Yep. With all that Arab oil money they are funded with, al Qaida has invented a time machine, gone back to 1888, and planted smallpox in a book they know some woman in the future will pick up and read.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
I guess the World Health Organization's crowing about smallpox eradication was a bit too early!
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Tom Ridge will claim that we now need to ban books in order to be more "secure".
The FBI needs to get a life if they were at all concerned about this. How embarassing. Morons. Everything is "terrorism" until proven otherwise. My god.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
It's a widely believed fact that bioweapons and extensive use of tactical nuclear weapons will be used in WWIII that is due to begin in 2006-2007.
Russia, China and the Arabs will unite. New York will be devastated by two small nuclear devices and while USA isolates itself to deal with the trauma, China invades Asia and Russia pushes into Western Europe.
Could you pin down the dates a little more, old chap? I need to get my planning in order and know when to go hide.
Thanks!
The only good weather is bad weather.
Don't worry, this is the FBI which has made short shrift of Osama bin Laden, singlehandedly captured Saddam Hussein, cornered the Anthrax Mailer, cleverly foiled the 9/11 planebombings on advance intelligence, have kept Chinese industrial spies away from our tech secrets, has won the drug war, busted the thieves at Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Arthur Anderson, and the rest. They found the malicious Bush leaker who blew CIA agent Plames cover in Niger, discredited the 16 State of the Union words about the imaginary African uranium bound for Iraq, preempted Iranian and North Korean nuclear bombs. They nabbed the 2000 election vote riggers, and are already jailing the criminals at the top of the 2004 eVote insecurity debacles. If they think something is scary, we should all bow our heads in fear, and double their budget again. If it were possible to promote the FBI chief, we would; instead, we'll just have to settle for the Patriot Act, which dissolves that archaic Bill of Rights which was just getting in the way.
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make install -not war
the FBI had concerns that the smallpox may have been planted in the book
In a related story, the authorities are now scouring libraries coast to coast to find the book entitled, "Where I Am Hiding" by Osama Bin Laden.
Actually, they were worried the story was
a hoax by someone who wanted to create fear
and panic.
In addition to "Fair and Balanced", I believe Fox News has "Fear and Panic" copyrighted. Watch yourself or you could get sued.
What is really needed now is a moderation option called "Eeewwwww!"
Table-ized A.I.