Gareth Williams Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, PB, 456pp, £10.99, 978-0230274716
Angel of Death provides a very comprehensive history of smallpox and vaccine development, which has parallels with the current COVID-19 pandemic.
The book outlines how smallpox, present for several millennia, was nicknamed the ‘Angel of Death’ due to a case fatality rate of up to 50%. As well as high mortality, smallpox also led to severe disfigurement in many survivors, and was highly infectious, …