the.com/smallpox
The only disease humanity has ever hunted to extinction, on purpose.
means A severe, highly contagious viral disease marked by fever and a rash that turns into fluid-filled pustules, often fatal or disfiguring, now eradicated in the wild.
from From 'small' plus 'pox,' an old plural of 'pock,' meaning a pustule or blister. The 'small' was added in the 16th century to distinguish it from the 'great pox' — syphilis — whose sores were considered larger and whose reputation was, in its own way, worse.
- death toll
- killed roughly 300 million people in the 20th century alone
- eradicated
- declared gone globally in 1980, officially
- vaccine origin
- cowpox pus gave us the word vaccine, from vacca, cow
- last known case
- a hospital cook in Somalia, 1977