Of all the diseases ever suffered by humans, smallpox is the only one to be completely eradicated from the face of the Earth. The few known remaining samples are under heavy guard in research labs ...

Not so with smallpox. To create this vaccine, you begin with another virus that is similar to the smallpox virus, yet different enough not to bring on the smallpox disease once it enters your body.

Written by a French-speaking immunologist and translated into English, the book deals less with the eradication of smallpox than Jenner's contributions to the development of vaccination and the ...