Dr. Jenner and the Speckled Monster

The book Dr. Jenner and the Speckled Monster by Albert Marrin is a book about smallpox. If you are squeamish, do not read this book. In this book, Dr. Edward Jenner, an English doctor is trying to discover the cure for smallpox, but he discovers much more.

The first portion of the book is about the smallpox history. Smallpox belongs to a large group of viruses called the orthopoxviruses or the "true pox". The scientific name for the virus that causes smallpox is Variola. This word comes from the word varius. Varius is Latin for "spotted"or "speckled". Smallpox is a very fast spreading disease. A person with the disease can spread it with one simple cough. Every cough sprays up to 5,000 droplets of the virus. The sores of smallpox spread quickly on a person's body. The victim's skin feels as if it is on fire and the body gives of an odor.

Dr. .Jenner

When the book starts with Dr. Jenner's life he is just a young boy who was forced to get inoculated. He formed a fear of it and when he became a doctor, he was reminded of it every time he had to inoculate a patient. Dr. Jenner wanted to create a "cure" for smallpox much less painful than inoculation. In the book, Dr. Jenner discovers that if a person recovers from cowpox,  then that person will not suffer from smallpox. Cowpox is much less severe than smallpox. Dr. Jenner created a vaccine with cowpox that is much less painful than inoculation. This saved many lives.

This book is a great read for anyone interested in smallpox. The book gives lots of background information on smallpox. This gives the reader everything they need to know about smallpox before the book is about Dr. Jenner's discoveries. At the end of the book, the author writes about the twenty-first century, which is a great ending. Over all this is an informative and interesting book that fills the mind with knowledge and the history of smallpox.