A history of the global spread of vaccination during the Napoleonic Wars, when millions of children were saved from smallpox.

It seems fitting in 1973, when the World Health Organization has announced that worldwide smallpox will be eradicated completely from the world before the year's end, to tell the story of the long struggle against this killer and defacer of man, of the devastating epidemics in early Boston, and the consequent discovery of inoculation. In eighteenth-century history inoculation for smallpox marked a new beginning. Science entered the picture, stimulating keener observation, a sharper respect for objective fact, and never-ending experimentation. It reshaped American culture from a new center, leading life and thought out in new directions. In our own deeply troubled, revolutionary, and almost incredibly hopeful twentieth century, this once familiar but now only dimly remembered story takes on a timeless relevance. - Foreword.

A biography of the life and achievements of Albert Einstein, one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century.

A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across the Americas when the War of Independence began, and yet little is known about it. Fenn reveals how deeply "variola" affected the outcome of the war in every colony and the lives of everyone in North America. Illustrations.