Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1997 Oct 15;127(8 Pt 1):635-42.
doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-127-8_part_1-199710150-00010.

Smallpox: the triumph over the most terrible of the ministers of death

N Barquet  1 , P Domingo
Affiliations

Smallpox: the triumph over the most terrible of the ministers of death

N Barquet et al. Ann Intern Med. .

Erratum in

  • Ann Intern Med 1998 May 1;128(9):787

Abstract

More than 200 years ago, Edward Jenner performed an experiment that laid the foundation for the eradication of smallpox and transformed humankind's fight against disease. Smallpox afflicted humankind as no other disease had don; its persistence and diffusion were without parallel. The disease brought down at least three empires. Generations watched helplessly as their children succumbed to the disease or were disfigured or blinded by it. Attempts were made to contain smallpox by isolating its sufferers and, later, by using variolation with varying degrees of success. However, the definitive solution was not found until Jenner's work was done at the end of the 18th century. Milkmaids who had developed cowpox from contact with cow udders informed Jenner that they were protected from the human form of the disease; he listened to their folk wisdom and raised it to the status of scientific fact. Jenner did not discover vaccination, but he was the first to demonstrate that this technique offered a reliable defense against smallpox. It was also a reliable defense against other illnesses, such as poliomyelitis, measles, and neonatal tetanus, although this was not known in Jenner's lifetime.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

Substances

LinkOut - more resources