WI Ancient Variolation leads to Germ Theory?

POD that the claims of variolation in the Vedas are true and develop into a basic idea of physical transmission of disease from one person to another.

Perhaps a Greek traveler in India witnesses the practice and returns to Greece at a time of a small pox epidemic. In desperation people try anything and the knowledge variolation becomes established in the medical community and corpus. The theory behind the process of inoculation may be illusive but the idea that disease is physically spread from one person to another, of a disease from a source of that disease, of contagion is established.

I’m sure I’m suffering from some sort of perspective biases here but how plausible is it and what could have been the butterflies in the development of medicine, hygiene and biology?
 
I think it's possible the Greeks might adopt it, after all they did come-up with the basic concept of the Atom (if in a bizzarely hilarious manner), so it would'nt be that hard for them to deduce that disease was caused by something to small to see that was on people.
 
POD that the claims of variolation in the Vedas are true and develop into a basic idea of physical transmission of disease from one person to another.

Perhaps a Greek traveler in India witnesses the practice and returns to Greece at a time of a small pox epidemic. In desperation people try anything and the knowledge variolation becomes established in the medical community and corpus. The theory behind the process of inoculation may be illusive but the idea that disease is physically spread from one person to another, of a disease from a source of that disease, of contagion is established.

I’m sure I’m suffering from some sort of perspective biases here but how plausible is it and what could have been the butterflies in the development of medicine, hygiene and biology?

This isn't germ theory. People might still attribute disease to miasma, and the paradigm will be that being infected with miasma gives you an immunity to the disease. There's nothing that would necessarily cause people to realize viruses are the root cause of smallpox. Of course, I should point out that smallpox isn't actually caused by germs, but by viruses.

This idea might have great effects on disease prevention, or it might not; neither India nor China were able to wipe out smallpox despite variolation.
 
There was something much like germ theory around in the ancient world (animalculi - tiny disease-causing animals that were thought to inhabit the bodies of sufferers and could pass to others). It did not gain prominence largely because it wasn't a good explanatory model. If you want it to win out, you'll need to make it fit observed reality better. After all, there are so many diseases it cannot adequately explain that it requires quite a leap of faith. Especially compared to the humoral model, which offers an intuitive, actionable and convincing (though wrong) expl,anation for every disease.

As to what it might do, the answer is likely surprisingly little. Germ theory helped our understanding of medicine, but until the advent of modern microbiology and chemistry, I can't see the substantial advances happening. You don't get Salk without Lister and Koch, no Koch without Pasteur, no Pasteur without Leuwenhoek, no Leuwenhoek without al-Hunain. Interesting developments may yet happen - hopefully, greater cleanliness - but you can't have real asepsis without the means to test for it. "Patient dead - better cleaning next time" is no substitute even if you don't care about patients much.
 
This isn't germ theory. People might still attribute disease to miasma, and the paradigm will be that being infected with miasma gives you an immunity to the disease. There's nothing that would necessarily cause people to realize viruses are the root cause of smallpox. Of course, I should point out that smallpox isn't actually caused by germs, but by viruses.

This idea might have great effects on disease prevention, or it might not; neither India nor China were able to wipe out smallpox despite variolation.

It would still have the same consequences as germ theory: Once you accept that the "miasma" can be moved around and infects everything it touches, the logical consequence is that you have to prevent the spreading of the miasma. Which will lead to the development of hygiene.
The consequences will be huge mainly because the whole childbed fever thin can be eliminated.
 
It would still have the same consequences as germ theory: Once you accept that the "miasma" can be moved around and infects everything it touches, the logical consequence is that you have to prevent the spreading of the miasma. Which will lead to the development of hygiene.
The consequences will be huge mainly because the whole childbed fever thin can be eliminated.

Isn't that exactly the real-life historical logic that was used? It didn't help too much back then, why would it help under this situation.

Either way, it isn't germ theory, which is much more complex.
 
Even without Carlton Bach’s contribution I was suggesting getting an element of germ theory, a contribution on the way like the ideas from Leeuwenhoek or Pastuer along the lines of John Snow and the statistical analysis that argued against the miasma theory in the 1854 London cholera outbreak. I’m not suggesting the application of mathematics but the right time and right place that an element of the idea gets established as a basis for medical thought. A little less plauge results perhaps?



You always hope that one butterfly will prevent alot of suffering or change the world for the better.

I get a vision of Archimedes under an apple tree with fate pelting him with apples trying to get him to develop “Newtonian” Physics. Him just getting a head ache and going inside.

Come to think of it Aeschylus might have been killed by someone trying to do alternate history by dropping a tortoise on his head…
 
It would still have the same consequences as germ theory: Once you accept that the "miasma" can be moved around and infects everything it touches, the logical consequence is that you have to prevent the spreading of the miasma. Which will lead to the development of hygiene.
The consequences will be huge mainly because the whole childbed fever thin can be eliminated.

To be fair, this did happen a fair amount. There are ordinances from Medieval London and other locations instituting fines against butchers who throw waste into the street, where one complaint is the spreading of foul miasmas.

It's just that it only really worked when the 'miasma' in question could be definitavely linked to a foul smell.
 
Isn't that exactly the real-life historical logic that was used? It didn't help too much back then, why would it help under this situation.

No it wasn't because the historical logic was "miasma is in one place so we shouldn't go there". The idea that the miasma could be carried around and then infect people that were far away from the original place was new.
However if you accept that variolation works (something which historically wasn't accepted until the 19th century) this means that the bad influence can evidently be carried around and infect other people...
And therefore it becomes a viable option to stop this spreading.
 
However if you accept that variolation works (something which historically wasn't accepted until the 19th century) this means that the bad influence can evidently be carried around and infect other people...
Define "accepted". Cotton Mather was doing it in Massachusetts in 1706.
(Edit: yes, it was a brand new theory to Europe about then, and COULD have been practiced for centuries before, so 18th or 19th century is just a quibble.)

The biggest problem is that you actually gave people smallpox and about 5% died in variolation. That's, of course, far better result than if you know you're going to have a smallpox epidemic every generation, but would be murder in Iceland, say, which only had epidemics every couple of centuries.
 
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