Smallpox Gallery

Smallpox: the “Speckled Monster”

Smallpox was a hideous disease that made its victims unrecognizably monstrous, and many died in agony. The terror it fueled was intense…

The course of the disease from rash to pocks to scabs…

Pustules grew so thick that they congealed into one massive sore. Skin sometimes sloughed off in sheets…

The rarest and most lethal form of the disease, once called “the purples,” was a death sentence…

Messy Miracles: anything is better than smallpox…

History may seem solid, but it changes as new facts come to light. Since I published “The Speckled Monster,” the trial records of the prisoners…