A Pox on Both Your Houses Quiz | Thematic Fun

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Which disease was once known as the 'Great Pox'?

Answer: syphilis

Syphilis isn't a poxvirus at all - it's not even a virus. Once named for the nasty lesion that characterises the primary phase of the disease. The science of classification has become more exact over time and infectious agents are grouped by genetic relatedness rather than their more notable symptoms.

2. Which of these is not a member of the poxvirus family?

Answer: chickenpox

Chickenpox is caused by the varicella zoster virus. It's a type of herpes virus.

3. The title of this quiz is a common misquote from one of Shakespeare's plays. In which play do we hear the curse "A plague on both your houses"?

Answer: Romeo and Juliet

Mercutio utters this curse three times after he is stabbed by Tybalt.

MERCUTIO
I am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.
Is he gone, and hath nothing?

BENVOLIO
What, art thou hurt?

MERCUTIO
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.
Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

ROMEO
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO
No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o' both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.

ROMEO
I thought all for the best.

MERCUTIO
Help me into some house, Benvolio, Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms' meat of me: I have it, And soundly too: your houses!

4. Which of these historic figures is NOT believed to have died of smallpox?

Answer: George Washington

Washington caught smallpox around 1751, but survived the attack.

The mummy of Rameses V shows signs of a smallpox rash on his face and chest. He is believed to have died c.1156 BCE, in his early 30s.

Pocahontas contracted smallpox in London and died in 1617. The disease would go on to devastate many of the native peoples of the Americas.

French King Louis XV died in 1774.

Other historical figures who died from smallpox include Queen Mary II of England, Emperor Joseph I of Austria, and Emperor Komei of Japan. An epidemic in 165 A.D. killed approximately a third of the Roman Empire.

The history of many countries may have been radically different were it not for this disease...

5. Edward Jenner proved the principle of vaccination to prevent disease when he inoculated someone with pus from a cowpox lesion, then later tried to infect them with smallpox. Who was the subject of this clinical trial?

Answer: Jenner's servant's son

Cowpox is closely related to smallpox, but causes a very mild reaction. After developing immunity to cowpox, James Phipps was also immune to the much more dangerous smallpox. A dubious experiment by today's ethical standards, but Phipps never developed smallpox and lived to 65.

Thankfully today's vaccines are developed in laboratories, not scraped from someone else's oozing sores!

6. One of these men survived smallpox as a child, but was tormented by its effects for the rest of his life. Which one?

Answer: Joseph Stalin

Stalin's face was left deeply scarred by the disease. He reputedly ordered thousands of official photographs altered to hide the marks.

7. How did the myxoma virus first get into Australia?

Answer: It was deliberately introduced

Within a few decades of rabbits being introduced by Europeans their population exploded and was destroying native Australian flora and fauna. The farmers weren't happy either. The virus, which causes a rapidly spreading, highly fatal disease and only infects rabbits, reduced the wild population by more than 80% in only two years.

As genetic resistance to the virus spread throughout the rabbit population, their numbers rebounded. In 1996 a different virus was introduced to control their numbers again. Evolution at work!

8. Approximately how big is a single poxvirus?

Answer: About 5 times bigger than influenza virus

Relative to other viruses, poxviruses are huge! They can be up to 0.4 - 0.5 micrometers. Most animal cells are about 10 micrometers, as is a pollen grain. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is 1-5 micrometers in diameter. Influenza is a pretty small virus, at about 0.1 micrometers.

9. In the 1950s, approximately how many people became infected with smallpox each year?

Answer: 50 million

Up to 30% of people infected with the virus died, and more than half the survivors were left with deep scars or blindness. See the World Health Organisation's factsheet: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/

Number of people who have died from smallpox in the last 25 years: zero. Spectacular.

10. Which of these is NOT a reason why the smallpox global eradication campaign was successful?

Answer: The virus was dying out naturally anyway. The campaign was engineered by pharmaceutical companies in order to sell lots of vaccine

If you got this one wrong, let me remind you: at least 2-3 million deaths per year attributed to smallpox just 50 years ago, and zero, zilch, none, no one, nada, not a soul who has died of smallpox in the last 25 years. It's the world's most successful public health campaign, not a conspiracy!

Source: Author lorance79

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor ozzz2002 before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

A Pox on Both Your Houses Trivia Quiz

This quiz is all about the pox. Some science, some history, and even a bit of literature thrown in to keep you all happy :)

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