The Greatest Hero of All Time Is Someone You’ve Never Heard Of
His actions alone saved millions of lives.
In 1980, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Smallpox had been eradicated and the world breathed a sigh of relief. Smallpox was a deadly and highly contagious disease, killing three out of every ten people that contracted it. In the 20th century alone, it is estimated that Smallpox killed between 300–500 million people and disfigured countless others.
By comparison, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has killed about 1.23 million people worldwide, as of November 2020, and World War II resulted in 70–85 million deaths.
The first Smallpox vaccine was developed by Edward Jenner in 1796. Such was the significance of this achievement that Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States, wrote the following in a letter to Jenner:
Medicine has never before produced any single improvement of such utility … You have erased from the calendar of human afflictions one of its greatest … Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome small-pox has existed and by you has been extirpated. ~Thomas Jefferson, 1806
