Roman Bystrianyk

For centuries, smallpox has haunted the pages of history as one of humanity’s deadliest scourges—a disease so feared that it shaped entire public health systems and spurred the development of vaccines. But what if the story we’ve been told isn’t the full picture?

This short documentary revisits the accepted narrative and reopens the medical history books to uncover a forgotten perspective. Through firsthand accounts, historical medical texts, and expert commentary, the film explores the possibility that smallpox was not inherently the vicious killer it's remembered as—but rather a disease often worsened by misguided treatments and poor living conditions.

Travel back to the 17th century with Dr. Thomas Sydenham, the “English Hippocrates,” who argued that smallpox, when left to run its natural course, was among the safest of diseases. Witness the voices of other physicians over the centuries—William Cole, Isaac Massey, John Birch, and more—who echoed similar observations: that the real danger lay in the hands of the doctors and the practices they employed—overheating patients, bleeding them, restricting light and air, and administering toxic substances like mercury.

Drawing from hospital records, medical journals, and 19th-century critiques, this documentary lays bare how the standard of care—so often driven by superstition and medical dogma—may have turned a typically survivable illness into a death sentence. It reveals how the declining death toll from smallpox coincided not with widespread vaccination, but with improvements in hygiene, nutrition, and the abandonment of dangerous treatments.

By the late 1800s, Leicester had become a beacon for medical dissent. Its citizens, outraged by the dangers and coercion surrounding vaccination, mobilized in an extraordinary show of public resistance. The great Leicester demonstration of 1885, which drew tens of thousands into the streets, marked a turning point in the public health narrative. It was not a protest born of ignorance but one rooted in tragic experience, scientific skepticism, and a vision for medical liberty. Leicester’s alternative approach—focused on sanitation, isolation, and swift case response—proved strikingly effective.

In the years that followed, the city’s health statistics began to speak for themselves. Despite its low vaccination rates, Leicester reported fewer smallpox cases and deaths than many highly vaccinated towns. International observers took notice. The so-called “Leicester Method” challenged the prevailing medical orthodoxy and began to shape public health discourse far beyond Britain’s borders.

By the end of the 1800s, smallpox itself had significantly waned. While official policies still clung to mandatory vaccination, real-world observations painted a different picture. The disease, once a dreaded killer, had become increasingly rare and often mild—even as vaccination rates continued to decline. This paradox raised urgent questions about the true effectiveness of vaccination and underscored the importance of alternative measures that respected individual rights and public health alike.

The legacy of Leicester endures not just in statistics, but in the enduring principle that public health must be grounded in transparency, respect, and informed consent. The people who stood in protest in 1885 did more than defy a law—they helped reshape a conversation that continues to this day.

What If Smallpox Was a Mild Disease? is a thought-provoking exploration of how history, medicine, and public perception intersect—and how reevaluating the past might change the way we think about disease, authority, and the legacy of public health.

References:

R. G. Latham, MD, The Works of Thomas Sydenham, MD, vol. I, 1848, London, pp. lxxii–lxxiii.

John Pechey, MD, The Whole Works of that Excellent Practical Physician Dr. Thomas Sydenham, MD, 1696, London, pp. 100, 404.

Isaac Massey, apothecary to Christ’s Hospital, A Short and Plain Account of Inoculation, 1722.

Isaac Massey, Remarks on Dr. Jurin’s Last Yearly Account of the Success of Inoculation, 1727, London, p. 5.

The Gentleman’s Magazine, July 1814, p. 24.

The Public, Chicago, Saturday, August 27, 1898, no. 21, p. 5.

The Parliamentary Debates, 1907, vol. CLXIX, p. 408.

Abraham Rees, The Cyclopaedia; Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, vol. 29, 1819.

John Mason Good, MD, The Study of medicine: Empyesis Variola Smallpox, vol 1, 1864, New York, Harper & Brothers, Publishers, pp. 639–640.

Charles Perry, MD, An Essay on the Smallpox, 1747, London. pp. 17–20.

Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen, “The ‘Murderous’ Medical Practice of the 18th Century,” March 1, 2018.

Russell Thacher Trall, MD, Water-cure for the Million, 1860, New York, p. 7.

Samuel Dickson, MD, Glasgow, The “Destructive Art of Healing;” or, Facts for Families, Second Edition, 1855, London, Geo. Routledge & Co., pp. 5–6.

Henry G. Hanchett, M.D., “An Inquiry in Prophylaxis,” The New York Medical Times, vol. XVI, no. 10, January 1889, p. 306.

Charles V. Chapin, “Variation in Type of Infectious Disease as Shown by the History of Smallpox in the United States,” The Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 13, no. 2, September 1913, p. 173.

Harry Bernhardt Anderson, State Medicine a Menace to Democracy, 1920, p. 84.

C. Killick Millard, The Vaccination Question in the Light of Modern Experience: An Appeal for Reconsideration, 1914, London, pp. 15–17.

Charles V. Chapin, “Variation in Type of Infectious Disease as Shown by the History of Smallpox in the United States,” The Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 13, no. 2, September 1913, pp. 172-179.

John Gerald Fitzgerald, Peter Gillespie, and Harry Mill Lancaster, An Introduction to the Practice of Preventive Medicine, 1922, C.V. Mosby Company, p. 197.

John Price Crozer Griffith, The Diseases of Infants and Children, Volume 1, 1921, W.B. Saunders Company, p. 370.

George Dock, MD, “Smallpox and Vaccination,” Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association, vol. 19, April 1922, p. 168.

Charles V. Chapin and Joseph Smith, “Permanency of the Mild Type of Smallpox,” Journal of Preventive Medicine, 1932.

“Smallpox in the United States: Its decline and geographic distribution,” Public Health Reports, vol. 55, no. 50, December 13, 1940, pp. 2303-2312.

Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute, vol. 66, 1946, p. 176.

C. Killick Millard, MD, DSc, “The End of Compulsory Vaccination,” British Medical Journal, December 18, 1948, p. 1074.

Thomas Mack, MD, “A Different View of Smallpox and Vaccination,” New England Journal of Medicine, January 30, 2003, pp. 460–463.

Transcript of the Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices held at the Atlanta Marriott Century Center, Atlanta, Georgia, on June 19 and 20, 2002.

C. Henry Kempe, “Smallpox vaccination of eczema patients with attenuated live vaccinia virus,” Yale journal of biology and medicine, August 1968, pp. 9–10.

A New Year’s Gift to the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of the City of Glasgow, 1st January, 1874. p. 46.

American Medicine, vol. II, no. 23, December 7, 1901, p. 901.

Jay Frank Schamberg MD, Diseases of the skin and eruptive fevers, 1908, pp. 383, 408, 409.

Quotes:

In each and every community where vaccination ceases and instead strict sanitation is accomplished, the disease small-pox disappears, there are no exceptions.[1]

— Chas F. Nichols, MD, Boston, Massachusetts

I believed vaccination prevented smallpox. I believed that vaccination, if it did not absolutely prevent smallpox, modified it and I believed that re-vaccination, if only frequent enough, absolutely gave total immunity. Experience has driven all that out of my head. I have seen that people who have been vaccinated get smallpox, and people who have been re-vaccinated get smallpox, and I have seen people who have had smallpox once get a second attack of it, and die of it.[2]

— Dr. W. J. C. Ward, MRCS, Harrogate

Now we claim to be able to show that not only does vaccination not prevent small-pox, but also that it is capable of causing loathsome diseases that are worse in their results, and more far-reaching than the worst effects of small-pox. Indeed, an attack of small-pox usually leaves the system of those who recover in a better condition than it was before the attack. On the other hand, the evil effects of vaccination are not only felt by the present living victim, but may be transmitted to future generations, and thus the sins—not of the parents (it is only the parents’ ignorance), but of the physicians who are not sufficiently learned in the horrible effects of vaccination—are visited upon the children of even the third and fourth generation. (1891)[3]

— George H. Clark MD, Germantown, Philadelphia

From experience I have seen more evils result from vaccination than I ever saw result from small-pox. In the first place, I have seen direct fatal results from vaccination. In the second place, I have seen chronic-incurably chronic-disease the result of vaccination, and death after the lapse of many years; and, in the third place, I have seen introduced into the system, through vaccination, diseases of a destructive character, especially syphilis.

I was vaccinated when a boy, and a few years afterwards I took small-pox. I vaccinated my first four children. One of them died certainly from vaccination, and another was never strong after he was vaccinated. I would rather be shot than have anyone of my family vaccinated. (1881)[4]

— John Le Gay Brereton, Esq., MD, MRCS, LAC

I have recently dissected more than a dozen children whose deaths were caused by vaccination, and no small-pox, however black, could have left more hideous traces of its malignant sores, foul sloughing, hearts empty or congested with clots, than did some of these little victims. Shame! Indeed, scarcely a day elapses but I am called upon to witness the sufferings of vaccinated children in the form of cerebral and gastric complications, persistent vomiting, bronchitis, diarrhoea, with pustules in the mouth or throat (pharynx), on the eyelids, and ulceration of the cornea, which remains opaque and may lead to blindness. (1879)[5]

— William Hycheman, MD,
40 years’ experience as a Doctor of Medicine

We have at our command testimonies—scores of testimonies—proving beyond any possible doubt that men unvaccinated have nursed small-pox patients in hospitals at different times, for years, and never took the disease, while on the other hand we have, with the dates and figures, the most positive proof that those who had been vaccinated—vaccinated two and three times—took the disease when exposed, and died there-from. These facts are undeniable. (1913)[6]

— J. M. Peebles, MD, MA, PhD,
author of Vaccination a Curse and a Menace to Personal Liberty

Vaccination has never been anything but a delusion, maintained only by professional greed and a misunderstanding entirely to the physical health and needs of humanity. Once these rules are fully understood, no respectable physician will be guilty of practicing vaccination either on children or adults. (1921)[7]

— Joe Shelby Riley, MD, MS, PhD,
author of Conquering Units: Or The Mastery of Disease

[1] “Vaccination the Foul Invention of Hell,” Leaves of Healing, vol. XXXV, No. 14, January 2, 1915, p. 315.

[2] “Vaccination the Foul Invention of Hell,” Leaves of Healing, vol. XXXV, No. 14, January 2, 1915, p. 316.

[3] Some Thoughts About Vaccination, Homoeopathic Envoy, October 1891, vol. II., no. 8, pp. 60–61

[4] “John Le Gay Bereton, Esq., MD, MRCS, LAC,” New South Wales, Compulsory Vaccination, Presented to the Parliament by Command, September 20, 1881, Sydney: Thomas Richards, Government Printer, pp. 1043–1046.

[5] William Hycheman, MD, “Small-pox and Vaccination,” The Medical Tribune, February 15, 1879, vol. I, no. 4, pp. 172–175.

[6] J. M. Peebles, MD, MA, PhD, Vaccination a Curse and a Menace to Personal Liberty, Tenth Edition, 1913, p. 8.

[7] Joe Shelby Riley, MD, MS, PhD, Conquering Units: Or The Mastery of Disease, 1921, pp. 883–4.