Smallpox
For thousands of years, smallpox had been one of the world’s biggest killers. From the terrible plague that nearly wiped out the entire Aztec and Inca populations in the 1500s to the outbreak in the colonies that killed many of George Washington’s troops during the Revolutionary War, smallpox has been responsible for some of the worst epidemics of all time. In the 1960s, the World Health Organization started a worldwide vaccination campaign in an attempt to wipe out this disease once and for all. By 1980 they declared victory, and there hasn’t been a known case of smallpox since. But are we really completely safe from this terrible killer?
In Smallpox: Is It Over?, children become medical detectives as they investigate the history of the disease, how it spreads, and the impressive details of how doctors and scientists developed a cure that has saved millions of lives. Packed with large photos and written in a narrative style, kids will come to understand the devastation that a contagious disease can inflict—and learn how humankind bravely responds.