Free levelled English reading practice. Read for meaning first, then use the full Speed Reading tool to time yourself and track your progress.
For thousands of years, smallpox was one of humanity's most feared diseases. It caused high fever and a distinctive rash, killed a significant proportion of those infected and left many survivors scarred or blind. Long before modern vaccination, communities in parts of Asia and Africa used forms of variolation, deliberately exposing people to smallpox material in an attempt to produce protection. The method could work, but it also carried serious risks. In 1796, English physician Edward Jenner tested a different idea. He had heard that milkmaids who caught cowpox, a usually mild disease, seemed protected from smallpox. Jenner inoculated eight-year-old James Phipps with material from a cowpox sore and later exposed him to smallpox material. Phipps did not develop smallpox. The experiment would be considered ethically unacceptable by modern standards, but it became an important step in the history of vaccination. Vaccination gradually spread and later became safer and more systematic. In the twentieth century, the World Health Organization led an intensive global eradication campaign using vaccination, surveillance and rapid response to outbreaks. The last naturally occurring case of smallpox was recorded in Somalia in 1977. In 1980, the WHO declared smallpox eradicated. It remains the only human infectious disease to have been eradicated globally, showing what coordinated public-health action can achieve.
Comprehension questions
What was variolation intended to do?
What observation influenced Jenner?
When did Jenner test his idea?
Where was the last natural smallpox case recorded?
