Trivially Speaking: Smallpox killed millions, and many tried to find cures

Trivially Speaking: Smallpox killed millions, and many tried to find cures

Yes, Virginia, there was an Edward Jenner but that was long ago. And before him there was smallpox.We don’t know when smallpox appeared but it was around 10,000 B.C., at about the time of the first agricultural settlement in northeastern Africa. From there it made have spread to India courtesy of ancient Egyptian traders.We have to track the disease using evidence of skin lesions (resembling those of smallpox) on the faces of mummies (yuk) such …