Common name of the small pox, and any alternative or previous names?

Variola is the medical term. A lighter case is called Variola minor. Possibly some relationship to cowpox, as people who have cowpox are then immune to smallpox. Read some history here:


http://dermatology.about.com/cs/smallpox...

Common name of the small pox, and any alternative or previous names?
Small pox is the common name. The latin name is Variola major.
Reply:The name of the virus is variola. It was cowpox that was used to make the first vaccine - for smallpox (which results from infection with the variola virus) .





The term vaccine comes from the word vacca -cow in Latin. Dairymaids who caught cowpox, a minor disease, couldn't catch smallpox, a fatal disease. This is what gave Edward Jenner the idea for vaccination. The evil man actually experimented with the idea on an 8 year old boy!! Luckily, the boy didn't get the disease, but then the vaccination was born, and they've been experimenting on our children ever since.