2016 was a year filled with highly publicized celebrity deaths. While almost everyone has heard of David Bowie, Carrie Fischer, and Prince, almost no one recognizes the name Donald Henderson. Out of all the people who died last year, Dr. Henderson may have made the greatest contribution to modern society, the eradication of smallpox.
For most of us, the only time we even think about smallpox is when we notice the little scar on our arm, and most of the younger generations don’t even have that. In the 20th century alone smallpox claimed the lives of more than 300 million people. Since the days of the pharaohs smallpox has been a plague on our society. For millennia every generation attempted to fight the disease through prevention, quarantine, and eventually vaccination.
In the 1960s Dr. Donald Henderson lead a small group of heroes known as the Smallpox Eradication Unit. At the time 2 million people were dying from smallpox every year. Now 0 people die from smallpox, and the last recorded death was in 1979.
Take a moment to learn more about the man who improved the standard of living for the entire world. A man who’s contribution was so great, no one even remembers it.