The medical history of smallpox is a saga of untold human suffering, unforeseen human inventiveness, and-ultimately-unprecedented human triumph. Smallpox was a loathsome disease, spreading around the world from antiquity to modern times. It was transmitted by an invisible virus; it infected an individual person and an entire community with remarkable speed; and it proved fatal to nearly one-third of its victims. Those who somehow survived a painful two-week period of fever, skin eruptions, and internal organ damage were usually left with severe scarring and sometimes blinded. There was no cure.
Origins of the Disease
No one knows for certain when, where, or how the smallpox virus first appeared on earth; we do know that it has circumnavigated the planet multiple times over many centuries, invading every place of human habitation. We also know more generally that the incidence of different forms of microbiological infection is probably almost as old as life itself: the first fossil traces of higher organisms, from half a billion ... read full excerpt from Smallpox: The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge ebook
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