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 ...

The infection, in her right eye, threatened to take her vision. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. A U.K. woman developed a severe ...

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on . Between mid-January and mid-February 2009, 33 human cases of cowpox were reportedly diagnosed in France (15 ...

A teenager in the Netherlands who rescued a drowning kitten from a ditch developed a large, blackened open wound on her wrist, which took multiple doctors several weeks to find its rare cause, ...

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 ...

Two versions of an oral drug that halts the deadly action of smallpox and related orthopox viruses have been shown by researchers in Alabama and California to be effective in cowpox-infected mice, ...

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 ...