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I've heard that George Washington mandated his troops get vaccinated for smallpox, but this must have been well before the germ theory of disease was invented. How did people think that vaccines worked and how were they administered? Was technology advanced enough to make needles?

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I've heard that George Washington mandated his troops get vaccinated for smallpox, but this must have been well before the germ theory of disease was invented. How did people think that vaccines worked and how were they administered? Was technology advanced enough to make needles?	710