The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History

by Donald R. Hopkins

Once known as the "great fire" or "spotted death," smallpox has been rivaled only by plague as a source of supreme terror. Although naturally occurring smallpox was eradicated in 1977, recent terrorist attacks in the United States have raised the possibility that someone might craft a deadly biological weapon from stocks of the virus that remain in known or perhaps unknown laboratories.

In The Greatest Killer , Donald R. Hopkins provides a fascinating account of smallpox and its role in human history. Starting with its origins 10,000 years ago in Africa or Asia, Hopkins follows the disease through the ancient and modern worlds, showing how smallpox removed or temporarily incapacitated heads of state, halted or exacerbated wars, and devastated populations that had never been exposed to the disease. In Hopkins's history, smallpox was one of the most dangerous—and influential—factors that shaped the course of world events.

Genres: History, Science, Medicine, Health, Nonfiction, Medical

398 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1983

Reviews

[Hal Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hopkins never actually says that you should realign your entire view of history so that you see every war as nothing but a new vector for disease, every exploration and discovery as just an epidemic’s spread, every migration of peoples an opportunity for massive reinfection—but after reading this book you’ll probably want to try it anyway.

Princes and Peasants is probably the worst, as in most misleading, book title this side of Time Travel: A How-To Insiders Guide; the retitle, The Greatest Killer, is kitschier, but at the very least more on point.

[Malcolm Schmitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book from the 70s, and as such, is probably more than a little inaccurate in terms of historiography/etc. DESPITE THIS, it's a really good overview of smallpox and just how much it's affected human history. It covers just about every part of the world with the same degree of depth and shows how people tried to treat smallpox (or not) throughout history.

[Meghan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Full of facts and figures that put me to sleep. A lot of it was speculation and some of the information was incorrect.

[Jenn Hartlove · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides an excellent collection of sources on the history of smallpox, and should be read by any person with an interest in disease and its societal effects. The way the book is organized misses an opportunity to draw together interesting insights and conclusions about the impact of smallpox on society and those effects of society on the spread of the disease. Organized chronologically by region, the book often reads as a litany of yearly smallpox mortality and morbidity statistics. Had the book been organized topically, rather than regionally, there would be opportunities to explore the effect the disease had on war, trade, religion, evolving human understanding about disease, international relations, slavery, etc--and the reverse.

[Jack Reifenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relevant. In-depth and well researched. I appreciate the massive role smallpox has played in shaping the world, affecting colonialism to royal successions and most everything in between. Also gives some background to the antivax movement.

[Valerie]

One tends to underrate the effects of smallpox on history. The appalling mortality in the Americas (in some places as high as 90%) is mirrored by the smaller-scale, but still devastating, mortality in places like the Austrian court.

This book also details preventive measures, including vaccination, but also including inoculation with weakened virus before vaccination was discovered.

A fascinating story that deserves to be followed up is the story of Spanish orphans who were recruited to act as a sort of bucket brigade, in order to transport inoculations to the Americas. One would be inoculated, and (before the sore healed), the next, and so on. One wonders what happened to these orphans, who were promised education, etc as a reward for their part in this.

[K. G. Whitehurst · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book one sits down and reads from cover to cover. It's a book you mine when you need information on a particular era. It is written for the historian and the epidemiologist, not the general educated audience. Great bibliography to mine.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not super interesting. It was all about numbers and stats and not really a lot about the disease itself.