Throughout the course of human history, one infectious disease (Figure 1) may account for more deaths than any other, perhaps all others combined. Smallpox mortality falls between 20% and 50%. Until ...

Matthew Newman, a 33-year-old from Bethesda, first checked his upper arm to see if he had received the smallpox vaccine as a child. Then, just to be sure the indentation he saw was really a scar from ...

Folks of a certain vintage have the tell-tale crater on their upper arms: The discolored, shallow scars from the smallpox vaccine. This ceased being a rite of passage in 1972, when the disease was ...