Smallpox was eradicated in 1977. This amazing, global public health achievement isn’t just a page in a history book or an entry in Wikipedia, it is highly relevant today. Understanding the ...

Throughout the course of human history, one infectious disease (Figure 1) may account for more deaths than any other, perhaps all others combined. Smallpox mortality falls between 20% and 50%. Until ...

Although smallpox is now ‘unfamiliar to the world today’ historian Elizabeth Fenn has written that it was ‘a misery commonplace in years gone by.’ For centuries, the smallpox virus and the gruesome ...

The first recorded vaccine—for smallpox—was administered by Edward Jenner, an English doctor, in 1796 to an eight-year-old boy, James Phipps. Jenner (pictured) took fluid from the lesions of a ...

It all started with an unremarkable trip to grandma’s house in 1970. But two days into the visit, something went terribly wrong. The 9-month-old grandson fell ill. First, a fever. Then, a nasty rash.

Physician Céline Gounder traveled to India and Bangladesh to bring back unheard stories from the eradication of smallpox, many from health... Smallpox was certified eradicated in 1980, but I first ...