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What was the first disease conquered by humans?

The first disease eradicated (destroyed) by humans is smallpox, which is caused by the variola virus that can spread from one person to another through the air. One of the most feared diseases in the world, smallpox killed millions when epidemics (widespread outbreaks) ravaged Africa, Asia, and Europe. Many of the survivors were left blind and badly scarred, but having had the disease once, the victim could not catch it again. When explorers visited North and South America, they brought the smallpox virus with them. Many Native Americans died because they had no resistance to the disease. In 1796 English doctor Edward Jenner (1749–1823) noted that dairy-maids who had had cowpox, a disease similar to smallpox but less deadly, did not catch smallpox. So Jenner took material from a cowpox sore on a milkmaid's hand and put it on a scratch on the arm of an...

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1. Origins
   1. How did early humans cure illness and disease?
   2. Who was the first doctor in history?
   3. What is the Hippocratic Oath?
   4. What are the four humors?
   5. When did biological warfare originate?
   6. Were there hospitals before the Middle Ages?
   7. When was the first North American hospital built?
   8. What advances were made in medicine during the Renaissance?
   9. How old is the concept of public health?
   10. What is Gray's Anatomy?
2. Modern Medicine
   1. When did modern medicine begin?
   2. Who invented vaccination?
   3. When did modern surgery begin?
   4. When was anesthesia first used?
   5. What surgical advances were introduced in the late twentieth century?
   6. Who introduced the use of antiseptics in hospitals?
   7. What are Louis Pasteur's contributions to the study of disease?
   8. When were antibiotics invented?
   9. Why are new antibiotics constantly being developed?
   10. Why is Florence Nightingale famous?
   11. When was the International Red Cross founded?
   12. Who discovered the X ray?
   13. Who was Clara Barton?
   14. What were the Curies' contributions to medicine?
   15. How did Jonas Salk and Albert B. Sabin save lives?
   16. When did the first heart transplant take place?
   17. When was the first test-tube baby born?
   18. When was the first kidney transplant?
   19. What is leprosy?
   20. What is the plague?
   21. Is yellow fever still a deadly disease?
   22. What was the first disease conquered by humans?
   23. Do scientists know when the AIDS virus first appeared?
   24. Who was Typhoid Mary?
   25. Has the flu ever reached epidemic proportions?
   26. What are CT and MRI scans?
3. Psychology
   1. Why are Pavlov's dogs famous?
   2. What is behaviorism?
   3. What were Sigmund Freud's contributions to the study of human psychology?
   4. What does the term "Jungian" mean?
   5. Who was Dorothea Dix
   6. What is depression?

1. Middle Ages