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, and left the survivors disfigured for life. In this riveting, terrifying look at the history of smallpox, Jonathan B. Tucker, Ph.D., an expert on biological and chemical weapons, tells the story of this deadly disease, the heroic efforts to eradicate it worldwide, and the looming dangers it still poses today. Over the centuries the smallpox virus afflicted rich and poor, royalty and commoners, and repeatedly altered the course of human history, as when the Spanish conquistadors brought it to the New World where it decimated the indigenous populations. In 1796 English doctor Edward Jenner developed a vaccine against smallpox, which caused it to eventually disappear in industrialized countries. In 1967 the World Health Org. (WHO) launched a global campaign to eradicate smallpox worldwide, which was achieved by early 1978. But lab. stocks of the virus still exist, as in Russia, and clandestine stocks pose a military threat.