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Article: The history of smallpox.(The Life and Death of Smallpox)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- March 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Life and Death of Smallpox. Ian and Jenifer Glynn. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]17.99. x + 278 pages. ISBN 1-86197-608-9.
The story of smallpox is an old one and some nasty, pox-like things wander through Thucydides, Diodorus and ancient Sanskrit texts. The illness was tectonic in its effects on society: it caused tides of refugees to move across the world, and those refugees moved it. It was a demographic disease.
Ian Glynn is an eminent physiologist and Jenifer Glynn is a distinguished historian and one of the most tantalising speculations in their book is that smallpox may have been responsible for the birth of Islam. In the sixth century the ...