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A photo the anti-vaxxers don’t want you to see.
It was one of the deadliest diseases known to mankind. Smallpox killed over half a billion people in the 20th century alone — three times the number of deaths from all of the century’s wars combined.
It began with flu-like symptoms, progressing to an horrendous rash consisting of deep sores, filled with fluid that would blister, ooze, crust and scab over, leaving permanent scars on those lucky enough to survive.
Just one teaspoon of smallpox virus is enough to infect every man, woman and child on earth.
But then a miracle — British doctor Edward Jenner created a vaccine after noticing that the milk maids (the women who milked the cows) who had been infected with “cow pox” never contracted smallpox.
This month marks the 270th birthday of Dr Jenner, known as the pioneer of vaccination who arguably saved more lives than anyone else in history. And yet, despite saving countless lives, he still had to deal with the early “anti-vaxx” movement where in 1796 as well as 2019, the boundaries between opinion and fact are often blurred.
