pigfarmer
tall, thin, irritable
In the meantime vaccine mandates that the anti-vaxers keep bitching about are nothing new:
Gen. George Washington Ordered Smallpox Inoculations for All Troops
"
n late 1776, as Gen. George Washington led his troops through the opening battles of the American Revolution, it was not necessarily the enemy fighters who posed the biggest risk to the fledgling U.S. Army.
An estimated 90% of deaths in the Continental Army were caused by disease, and the most vicious were variants of smallpox, according to the U.S. Library of Congress.
That's why Gen. Washington made the controversial decision to order the mass inoculation of his soldiers, an effort to combat spread of the disease that was at the time a major deterrent to enlistments and posed the risk of debilitating his army and tipping the balance of power against America's first warfighters.
According to the U.S. Library of Congress's Science, Technology, and Business Division, the smallpox inoculations began Jan. 6, 1777, for all of Washington's forces who came through the then-capital of Philadelphia, and through Morristown, New Jersey, following the Battle of Princeton.
Smallpox is a potentially fatal disease that starts with fever and vomiting and an outbreak of ulcers in the mouth and a skin rash. The skin rash turns into highly contagious fluid-filled blisters. The fatality rate was very high.
Inoculations were far more primitive - and dangerous - than today's vaccinations. The most common method was to cut a person's skin and rub the minor incision with a thread or cloth contaminated with a less-virulent version of smallpox, which in this case was a strain known as "variola."........."
Gen. George Washington Ordered Smallpox Inoculations for All Troops | Health.mil
I know Martha was an active proponent. Also that George may had had smallpox at some point and survived, he supposedly had a badly pock marked face. And red hair. At least that's what they tell you on the tour.
Sanitation was another huge source of misery and death and still can be. Army encampments of that era (and most later) are notorious. Frankly, covid revealed to me how disgusting some of us are, not that it should have been a surprise. Something as simple as washing your hands after using the bathroom shouldn't be a burden in where clean water and soap is commonly available. But is for too many people, if you take the time to notice.