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Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox
Scourge The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox
Author: Jonathan B. Tucker
Smallpox, the only infectious disease to have been eradicated, was one of the most terrifying of human scourges. It covered the skin with hideous, painful boils, killed a third of its victims, & left the survivors disfigured for life. Here is the story of this deadly disease, the heroic efforts to eradicate it, & the looming dangers it still pos...  more »
ISBN-13: 9781435297197
ISBN-10: 1435297199
Publication Date: 6/5/2008
Pages: 304
Edition: Reprint
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Book Type: Library Binding
Other Versions: Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD
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hardtack avatar reviewed Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox on + 2574 more book reviews
Due to my love of history, I was hoping for more on smallpox and its effect on human history. But this was only a very small part of the book. There is more on the medical attempts to control smallpox, much of which I was already familiar with. I use to write and lecture on how insects, primarily insect-vectored diseases, changed history. As a result, I also became very interested in non-insect-vectored diseases.

After spending several chapters describing how the disease was eradicated world-wide, the book spends a great deal of time on the development of smallpox as a "military weapon," with the superpowers and others playing games with each other.

Plus, it included a review of a high-level U.S. military/health exercise using smallpox as a bio-terrorism weapon against the U.S. by extremists, which proved to be a failure for the government, very similar to the current government failure with Covid-19. As a result, readers will also realize where we went wrong with Covid-19.