The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History

Front Cover
University of Chicago Press, 2002 M09 15 - 380 pages
Once known as the "great fire" or "spotted death," smallpox has been rivaled only by plague as a source of supreme terror. Although naturally occurring smallpox was eradicated in 1977, recent terrorist attacks in the United States have raised the possibility that someone might craft a deadly biological weapon from stocks of the virus that remain in known or perhaps unknown laboratories.

In The Greatest Killer, Donald R. Hopkins provides a fascinating account of smallpox and its role in human history. Starting with its origins 10,000 years ago in Africa or Asia, Hopkins follows the disease through the ancient and modern worlds, showing how smallpox removed or temporarily incapacitated heads of state, halted or exacerbated wars, and devastated populations that had never been exposed to the disease. In Hopkins's history, smallpox was one of the most dangerous-and influential-factors that shaped the course of world events.
 

Contents

Presumed spread of smallpox in ancient times
20
Two The Most Terrible of
22
Effects of smallpox on the House of Stuart partial family tree
40
Deaths from smallpox in seventeenth eighteenth and nineteenthcentury London
42
Effects of smallpox on the Austrian House of Habsburg partial family tree
45
Deaths from smallpox in London and Geneva 15801869
86
Deaths from smallpox in nineteenthcentury Prussia Austria and England
92
St Nicaise patron saint of smallpox
100
Deaths from smallpox in India 18681930
153
Shitala mata Hindu goddess of smallpox
160
Five The Spotted Death
164
Early outbreaks and possible spread of smallpox in Africa
170
Shapona Yoruba god of smallpox
201
OmoluObaluaye Brazilian and Cuban god of smallpox
232
Seven A Destroying Angel
234
Spread of V minor in North America
287

Three Heavenly Flowers
103
TouShen Niang Niang Chinese goddess of smallpox
136
Four Kiss of the Goddess
139
Eight Erythrotherapy and Eradication
295
Decline in smallpoxendemic countries 3069
306
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information