Brief History of Chickenpox

In the medieval era, the word “pox” meant curse.  This caused the belief that chickenpox was a plague brought upon cursed children by the use of black magic.  Presently, there are many various claims for who was the first person to actually have created the original description of chickenpox; however, in a medical history book, it claims that Giovanni Filippo of Italy was the original physician to describe this disease, between the dates of 1510 and 1580.  As a result, Richard Morton who was an English physician believed that chickenpox was a mild form of the disease, smallpox, in 1600.  Williann Heberden proved this theory wrong in 1767 when Williann clearly verified that chickenpox was different from smallpox.

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