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 ...

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 ...

Matthew Newman, a 33-year-old from Bethesda, first checked his upper arm to see if he had received the smallpox vaccine as a child. Then, just to be sure the indentation he saw was really a scar from ...