When and where did chickenpox first emerge?

Answer 1

It's not possible to know how chickenpox started. It is a very old disease. Chickenpox was described in the ninth century by a Persian physician. One history of medicine book credits Giovanni Filippo (1510-1580) of Palermo with the first description of varicella (chickenpox). Subsequently in the 1600s, an English physician named Richard Morton described what he thought a mild form of smallpox as "chicken pox." Later, in 1767, a physician named William Heberden, also from England, was the first physician to clearly demonstrate that chickenpox was different from smallpox. However, it is believed the name chickenpox was commonly used in earlier centuries before doctors identified the disease.

There are many explanations offered for the origin of the name chickenpox:

Samuel Johnson suggested that the disease was "no very great danger", thus a "chicken" version of the pox;

the specks that appear looked as though the skin was pecked by chickens;

the disease was named after chick peas, from a supposed similarity in size of the seed to the lesions;

the term reflects a corruption of the Old English word giccin, which meant itching.

As "pox" also means curse, in medieval times some believed it was a plague brought on to curse children by the use of black magic.

Answer 2

Chickenpox has been around for thousands of years, and it's not possible to know when and where the first case occurred.