It was late November of 1801, and William C. C. Claiborne arrived in Natchez only a few months before a smallpox epidemic hit the Mississippi Territory. Claiborne had just been appointed to his ...

Smallpox, the only human infectious disease to have been successfully eradicated, ailed people at least 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. A study of DNA sampled from Viking Age skeletons ...

“We have identified a limited number of widely known organisms that could cause disease and deaths in sufficient numbers to cripple a city or region. Smallpox is one of the most serious of these ...

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide expert advice on some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation and world. Our ...

Smallpox was certified eradicated in 1980, but I first learned about the disease's twisty, storied history in 1996 while interning at the World Health Organization. I was a college student fascinated ...

If you watched the riveting HBO miniseries on founding father John Adams, you surely recall the scene in which his wife, Abigail, inoculates her young children against smallpox by inserting pus from ...

On May 8, 1980, forty-five years ago, the World Health Organization, a part of the United Nations, announced that officials had eradicated smallpox from the world’s population. The last case occurred ...

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.

If you’ve watched the HBO miniseries on founding father John Adams, you probably recall the scene in which his wife Abigail inoculates her young children against smallpox by inserting pus from an ...

A national survey last week revealed that huge numbers of Americans have serious misconceptions about smallpox, a deadly disease that has not occurred naturally for more than 20 years. The government ...