Urth Net
Suzanne Delage:Quilts & smallpox
6 quoted lines · depth 2
William: the smallpox bit won't wash, not in a quilt from
American Revolution times. While the idea of leprosy coming
through infected items might have occurred to some colonists
(via the Biblical precepts thereon), it's unlikely that
anyone would have tried to pass smallpox on through germ
warfare in those pre-van-Leewenhoek days.
Actually the smallpox is possible. I've read several accounts of European colonists and/or soldiers giving clothes/bedclothes from smallpox victims to Native Americans specifically in the hope that they would catch the disease.
Mike