The man had injured the skin of his hands changing car tyres in cold weather and «should have been wearing plastic gloves,» says Heidelore Hoffman, the dermatologist who reported the case, «but he thought he was protected because he had been vaccinated
against smallpox as a child.»
Not only did Washington survive all of these conditions, he knew how to inoculate his army
against smallpox, claiming the British tried using
as an early form of biological warfare.