#255 - Ming 39: It's the End of the World As We Know It
The History of China
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The Cost of the Chinese Plague Epidemic
An early form of inoculation, called virilation, had been pioneered in China less than a century prior. It involves inserting or rubbing powdered smallpox scabs or fluids from infected individuals into scrapes made on the unaffected person's skin. The Jurchenn slash Monchus were so anxious to avoid coming into contact with infected people that at several key moments in their military incursions throughout the 1630s,. they fell back from an area in which contagion had been reported.
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