I don’t think we give enough weight to just how devastating smallpox was to humanity.
Until we eradicated it, smallpox killed an estimated 500 million people. It continuously killed people from Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs all the way to people in the 1980s. Smallpox collapsed whole civilizations. Eradicating it imo is one of humanity’s greatest victories.
For perspective:
The highest estimate for Spanish Flu deaths is 100 million.
I don’t think we give enough weight to just how devastating smallpox was to humanity.
Until we eradicated it, smallpox killed an estimated 500 million people. It continuously killed people from Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs all the way to people in the 1980s. Smallpox collapsed whole civilizations. Eradicating it imo is one of humanity’s greatest victories.
For perspective:
Smallpox is monstrous and if it comes back I will fucking sob. It’s horrific, it’s terrifying. Just measles making a comeback is miserable.
And that too when a large part of the world (India, China, later Turkey and Europe) actively inoculated their population against it.