During its lifetime, smallpox was many things. The ‘Angel of Death’ which wiped out millions was also a godsend to the Conquistadores, a useful tool for making people obey the Scriptures, and the lesson of nature that brought us vaccination. To understand these paradoxes, we first need to meet the variola virus that caused smallpox and understand how it maimed and killed. This chapter lays out a brief curriculum vitae of smallpox, beginning with the puzzle of how the ‘greatest killer’ could possibly be described as ‘small’.
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