For thousands of years, smallpox ravaged populations around the world, killing 30 percent of those it infected — until Edward Jenner discovered a vaccine in 1796 that eventually helped lead to the disease's eradication in the 1970s.
When Chief Pontiac, depicted here in the red shawl, besieged Fort Pitt in present-day Pittsburgh in 1763, some of the fort's commanders reportedly even handed out blankets infected with smallpox in hopes of spreading the disease to his troops.MPI/Getty Images
Though England enforced mandatory vaccinations starting in 1853, the country still suffered from occasional outbreaks. An outbreak in 1881 led to the use of ships to ease the pressure on overcrowded hospitals. City of London: London Metropolitan Archives/Heritage Images/Getty Images
According to the original caption, Dr. L. E. Bensom was on vacation from California when he heard about the outbreak, and he traveled by dogsled to an indigenous village to help. There, 70 of the 100 residents had smallpox, but just one died under Bensom's care.Bettmann/Getty Images
According to the original caption, he and his family walked hundreds of miles to escape the Communist zone and contracted the disease from other refugee children.Bettmann/Getty Images
The purdah law — which requires the segregation of men and women and for women to cover their skin — was lifted in order to prevent the spread of smallpox. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
The Global Smallpox Eradication Program began in 1967. By then, smallpox had been eliminated in North America and Europe, and the program succeeded in eradicating smallpox in South America (1971), Asia (1975), and Africa (1977).CDC/Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Though Europe had officially eradicated the disease, religious pilgrims who'd visited the Middle East carried the disease to Kosovo. CDC/Dr. William Foege/Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Once smallpox was declared eradicated, the hospital was fumigated and converted into new housing. Robert May/Mirrorpix/Getty Images
Throughout human history, few things could incite more terror than smallpox. The devastating disease, which spread indiscriminately across the globe, killed a full thirty percent of the people it infected and left many survivors blind or disfigured.
For thousands of years, it seemed that smallpox would be around forever. But the disease was stopped in its tracks in the 20th century thanks to an acute observation 200 years earlier by an English doctor named Edward Jenner. His theories about vaccinations were eventually accepted by society, leading to the eradication of the disease worldwide by 1977.
In the gallery above, discover the history of smallpox and the smallpox vaccination in 27 harrowing images. And below, read about the history of the disease and its 20th-century eradication.
The Early History Of Smallpox
Wellcome CollectionAn "angel of death" depicted knocking on a door in Rome. The devastating second century Antonine Plague, which killed up to seven million and led to the fall of the Roman Empire, is commonly believed to have been caused by smallpox.
Though smallpox has been documented throughout human history, no one is sure exactly where it originated. According to HISTORY, it may have emerged some 12,000 years ago as humans developed agricultural settlements.
The first evidence of smallpox, however, came much later. As the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports, smallpox rashes have been found on Egyptian mummies who died 3,000 years ago. And the earliest known written descriptions of the disease appeared in China during the 4th century C.E.
From there, the disease's path is a bit easier to trace. The CDC reports that increasing trade between cultures brought smallpox from Asia to Africa and from Africa to Europe. European settlers and enslaved Africans then brought smallpox to South America and the Caribbean and, later, to North America.
Along the way, smallpox wreaked death and destruction. HISTORY notes that the disease may have been responsible for the Antonine Plague of 165 to 180 C.E., which killed an estimated 3.5 million to 7 million people and helped bring about the fall of the Roman Empire. And smallpox and other illnesses wiped out a shocking 90 percent of indigenous people in North and South America when European settlers carrying the diseases arrived.
But in 1796, an English doctor made a fateful observation about milkmaids that would lead to the eradication of smallpox within two centuries.
How Vaccination Eradicated Smallpox Worldwide
Humankind wasn't entirely defenseless when it came to fighting smallpox. As a paper published in the National Library of Medicine explains, societies in Asia and Africa had come up with a process called variolation, or inoculation, which involved inserting the pus from someone with smallpox into the skin or nose of a healthy person.
But the process came with risks. Some two to three percent of people died from the procedure, which could also spark new epidemics or spread unrelated diseases like tuberculosis and syphilis. Still, it was the best defense humans had against smallpox — until Edward Jenner came along.
Bettmann/Getty ImagesA depiction of Edward Jenner vaccinating a child from smallpox using material from cowpox.
An 18th-century English doctor, Jenner noticed that milkmaids who caught cowpox seemed curiously immune to smallpox. In 1796, he scraped a lesion of cowpox from a milkmaid's hand and inoculated an eight-year-old boy, then later inoculated him again with pus from smallpox. The boy didn't get sick, proving that the cowpox inoculation had protected him.
Though Jenner's ideas weren't initially taken seriously, his vaccination technique proved to be much safer than variolation. And not only did it help wipe out smallpox completely — the CDC reports that the last naturally-occurring case of the disease happened in Somalia in 1977 — but it also led to vaccinations for other diseases like polio and measles.
Before that point, though, the disease rightfully terrified people around the world. In the gallery above, look through 27 disturbing photos that illustrate the history of smallpox, from its murky beginnings to its horrifying symptoms — and finally to its 20th-century eradication.
After looking through these devastating images of smallpox through the ages, delve into the shocking history of the polio epidemic. Or, learn about some of the most fascinating diseases that have ravaged humanity.
