Kate Womersley

Even after a vaccine, smallpox took two centuries to eradicate

Medical breakthroughs depend on overcoming prejudice as much as on scientific research, as two new books on the smallpox pandemic demonstrate

‘The COW POCK — or — the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation!’ Gillray cartoon on vaccination against smallpox using cowpox serum, 1802. Getty Images
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  • The Great Inoculator: The Untold Story of Daniel Sutton and His Medical Revolution

    Gavin Weightman

    Yale, pp. 208, £16

  • War Against Smallpox: Edward Jenner and the Global Spread of Vaccination

    Michael Bennett

    CUP, pp. 434, £29

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Jim Lawley

Life lessons from the oldest people in the world

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María Branyas Morera, aged 117, is the oldest person in the world. She was born in California on 4 March 1907 to Spanish parents who decided to return home in 1915. The voyage was an early lesson in adversity: her father died and María lost the hearing in one ear after she fell from the

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