A U.K. woman developed a severe eye infection thanks to a rare virus — cowpox, a cousin of smallpox, which she contracted from her pet cat. The 28-year-old woman went to the emergency room after she ...

A vaccine against smallpox exists, but governments’ supplies have dwindled since the disease was declared eradicated in 1980. Smallpox virus is preserved in laboratories in the United States and ...

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a beautiful milkmaid. Her face was flawless, her complexion peaches and cream, her smile confident as she bragged, "I shall never have smallpox for I have ...

The observation that milkmaids are frequently infected with cowpox but rarely catch smallpox is generally credited to the English doctor Edward Jenner. Although Jenner might not have been the first ...

Around thirty Europeans, including twenty French citizens, have recently contracted a viral infection linked to their pet rat. Two reseach teams in Marseille, France, led by Didier Raoult, director of ...

In southern New York state, a dairyman, his wife and their hired man stretched out their hands palm upwards, like suppliants, to Dr. H. P. Senftner, associate director of the state department of ...

Sixteenth century Aztec drawing of smallpox victims. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. One of the most celebrated medical anniversaries concerns a country doctor named Edward Jenner (1749-1823) who lived ...

For centuries, researchers assumed that the active ingredient in the vaccine providing immunity against smallpox was the cowpox virus but a new study otherwise. It is mind-boggling that researchers ...

Ten thousand years ago, when smallpox first emerged, humankind could do little more than pray to the gods for succor. Later known as variola, the virus that caused the disease first attacked the ...