The Life and Death of Smallpox

"The most terrible of all the ministers of death." Thomas Macauley Mozart, Voltaire, Elizabeth I and Abraham Lincoln all had it--and survived. Millions did not. The scourge of smallpox affected rich and poor alike, killing many and disfiguring the rest. 'Cures' included bleeding, purging, oil of scorpions and even crabs' eyes. Edward Jenner's breakthrough in 1796 started the slow, often controversial, process of controlling the virus. By 1979 smallpox had become the first-ever disease to be...