S4 E10: ONESIMUS: The African Slave who introduced inoculation (vaccination) to Americans.

While the history of eradication of smallpox is now well known, one of the important figures in the fight against smallpox is much less known or even masked.

While the history of eradication of smallpox is now well known, one of the important figures in the fight against smallpox is much less known or even masked.

It’s not known if Onesimus lived long enough to see the success of this technique, since his contribution has disappeared from the history books on public health, as indeed most of the other medical contributions and knowledge of precolonial Africa, such as the making of ultra-realist prosthesesof Pharaonic Africa, or successful cesarean section under anesthesia by baNyoro people in present-day Uganda.

How many Africans today are themselves skeptical about the stories of these African technical ingenuity of the past? Could it be due to inferiority complex? brainwashing? What else?