It's believed the disease was brought to the Americas in the 15th century by European explorers and settlers. Once on the continent, it (and other diseases) spread among Native Americans since Indigenous people had not previously been exposed to the virus.
In 1767, English physician William Heberden demonstrated that small pox was different from chicken pox. He showed that chickenpox is different from the more deadly disease, smallpox. He also showed that once a person has had chickenpox, that person usually never gets it again.
In modern times, the scientists who first described the chickenpox were E.Paschen, 1919; EE Tyzzer, 1906; von Bokay 1909. Paschen described elementary bodies in smears of vesicles obtained from patients with varicella while Ernest Tyzzer developed a bedside test to distinguish smallpox from chickenpox based on the presence of multinucleated cells in varicella lesions that were not found in smallpox. In 1888, von Bókay of Budapest reported the relationship between herpes zoster and chickenpox. He was first pointed out when he reported cases of the latter disease in members of two families after episodes of herpes zoster in other members.
Prior to 1995, when the chickenpox vaccine was introduced, nearly all U.S. children got infected with chickenpox by age 10. Although usually mild, rare complications resulted in more than 10,000 hospitalizations and 100 deaths per year.
In the 1950s, scientists isolated the varicella-zoster virus for the first time, paving the way for efforts to vaccinate against chickenpox and shingles. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first chickenpox vaccine in 1995 and the first shingles vaccine in 2006.
Modern history of chicken pox
