Past epidemics may offer some insight into what the future holds. Here’s a look back at some of them. Smallpox is caused by the variola virus, which spreads through skin-to-skin contact or ...

And historical texts describe epidemics of a smallpox-like disease in fourth-century China and second-century Rome. Still, the 17th-century variola virus DNA detected by Duggan and colleagues is ...

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 ...

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 ...