In 1977, the last natural case of smallpox was recorded in Somalia. Three years later, the World Health Organization announced the eradication of smallpox entirely, with the exception of small samples for research. Today, we hardly ever think about smallpox compared to other, more relevant diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, or Zika. But there was once a time when smallpox reigned supreme, the most persistent and deadly disease to plague humanity for millennia. Smallpox caused an incalculable number of deaths throughout history, causing the downfall of multiple empires and world leaders. Its mark on society is not to be underestimated. Through its dangerous symptoms, high infection and casualty rate, and long history, smallpox was the world’s most deadly disease and has the potential to be so again if the last remaining samples fall into the wrong hands.
Smallpox’s symptoms were horrifying to imagine and worse to experience. One to two weeks after contracting the smallpox virus, the symptoms would begin to show. Mayo Clinic states that in the first phase of the disease, victims would experience chills, a high fever, headaches, severe back and abdominal pain, and vomiting (“Smallpox”). Days later, the face, hands, and forearms, and later the torso, would be covered by a red rash. The rash would develop into small blisters filled with clear liquid and pus. Scabs formed over a week later and eventually fell, leaving deep pitted scars. Until the scabs fell off, the victim was contagious and could spread the disease to others. (“Smallpox”). According to the Mayo Clinic, those who managed to survive the disease usually were left with severe scars, especially in the affected areas, and occasionally were rendered blind (“Smallpox”). The symptoms of smallpox were devastating to its victims, and those who survived were permanently marked by the plague.
One of the deadliest aspects of the disease was its high infection and casualty rate. Healthline states that smallpox was an airborne disease, allowing for quick and easy transmission between an infected and healthy person. It could be spread via coughing, sneezing, and talking, as well as rare cases of indirect infection and through contaminated items (“Smallpox”). The plague also carried with it a shocking mortality rate, depending on which version of the virus you were infected with. Two common and two rare variants of smallpox existed. One of the common varieties, variola minor, only killed an estimated 1 percent of those infected, according to the CDC. However, the vast majority of smallpox cases were instead variola major, which killed nearly a third of its victims and accounted for 90 percent of smallpox cases. An even higher fatality rate existed among those who contracted the two rare variants of smallpox, hemorrhagic smallpox and malignant smallpox, per the Mayo Clinic (“Smallpox”). The infection and mortality rate of smallpox allowed smallpox to remain as a perpetual threat to human civilization.
Smallpox has terrorized humanity for thousands of years. According to the History Channel, the first humans infected from disease are believed to have lived some 12,000 years ago. The Egyptians are the first civilization known to have contracted the disease, with many mummies bearing familiar skin lesions and rival Hittite clay tablets accused the Egyptians of spreading smallpox during a conflict between the Hittites and Egyptians. Smallpox is also speculated to have brought about the Plague of Athens during the Peloponnesian War that devastated the city state, as well as the Antonine Plague of A.D. 165 to 180 that killed between 3.5 and 7 million Romans. The centuries that followed saw smallpox continue to spread across Europe, Asia, and Africa, killing around 30% of its victims while disabling even more with permanent physical defects. However, the effects of smallpox were multiplied many times over when the Spanish conquistadors and Colombian Exchange brought smallpox over to the New World. Smallpox reduced the native population by a staggering 90%, ripping through the Aztecs and Incas and making the region ripe for conquest by Europeans. At its peak in the 19th and 20th centuries, nearly 400,000 commoners were killed by smallpox annually in Europe alone, cementing smallpox’s place in the pantheon of deadliest diseases known to man (“The Rise and Fall of Smallpox”).
Three things stopped smallpox from killing even more of humanity and triggered the chain of events leading to the disease’s downfall and extermination. The first was that those who had survived smallpox once were unable to contract the disease again. As a result of this, the practice of inoculation- purposefully infecting patients with a mild form of the disease to gain immunity- rose in the late 17th and 18th centuries and proved somewhat effective at containing the disease, although the mortality rate of the inoculation itself was still too high. Finally, an English doctor by the name of Edward Jenner discovered in 1796 that a person could be protected from smallpox without direct exposure- the world’s first vaccine. Vaccination slowly gained steam worldwide despite challenges and, in 1967, the World Health Organization launched a global campaign to rid the world of smallpox once and for all (“The Rise and Fall of Smallpox”). Ten years later, a Somali hospital worker became the last person in history to contract the disease naturally (“Smallpox”).
So if smallpox only exists in laboratories, why should anyone care? The answer lies in the disease’s potential for destruction. If a rogue nation were to successfully resurrect a live variola virus and develop it for biological terrorism, the results could be catastrophic. The last time smallpox was loose on the world’s population, the impact on society that smallpox had was unrivaled amongst all pandemics except for the Black Death, and even more so when considering history as a whole. There exists no cure for those who contract smallpox, and the history of the disease has left a bloody trail of corpses in its wake. In the scenario where smallpox is unleashed once again into the world as a weapon for destruction, there is no telling what it could do to our society.