Smallpox: Defeating a Virus That Killed Half a Billion People

This is a great data-driven short documentary by Neil Halloran about how smallpox was eradicated from the face of the Earth. And what it took was humanity, through the use of science & humanitarianism, answering its own plea for something to be done about it.

Some philosophers believe there was a secondary humanitarian revolution that followed the scientific revolution. And I note this because the eradication of smallpox also had these two phases. The scientific breakthroughs of inoculation and the vaccine allowed many countries to become virtually smallpox-free — but not all countries. In fact, those 300 to 500 million deaths in the 20th century? They came well after the vaccine had been discovered. So clearly, for much of the world, something more was needed than medical innovation. And fortunately there’s reason to think that these two types of progress might be connected.

Part of being a human is contemplating why some of us get so sick. It’s a practical question and it’s more than that. As we learned about disease, the theory goes that we began to think a little differently about those who fell ill — to see that their suffering truly wasn’t meant to be. We stepped away from thinking it was up to a higher power and into the belief that, well, it was up to us.

See also How smallpox claimed its final victim (I’d never heard this story before watching Halloran’s video), How Children Took the Smallpox Vaccine Around the World, and No One Knows What’s Inside the Smallpox Vaccine.

• medicine
• Neil Halloran
• science
• smallpox
• vaccines
• video