Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox

Smallpox, the only infectious disease to have been eradicated, was one of the most terrifying of human scourges. It covered the skin with hideous, painful boils, killed a third of its victims, & left the survivors disfigured for life. Here is the story of this deadly disease, the heroic efforts to eradicate it, & the looming dangers it still poses today. The smallpox virus afflicted rich & poor, royalty & commoners, & repeatedly altered the course of human history, as when the Spanish conquistadors brought it to the New World where it decimated the indigenous pop's. In 1796 Edward Jenner developed a vaccine against smallpox, which caused it to eventually disappear in industrialized countries. But lab. stocks of the virus still exist, & clandestine stocks pose a mil. threat.