Today, it’s so difficult for many of us to imagine what it must have felt like to have lived in a time when the spectre of smallpox stalked the streets. And it’s this historical emotion, this forgotten terror, that this episode of Vaccine is going to explore.

Find out about the earliest attempts to treat the disease in the libraries of Baghdad, and along the Silk Road. Hear about the famous Queen of England who suffered with the illness, and was forever scarred by it. Discover what happened when the catastrophe of smallpox arrived in the New World, and find out how the first rays of hope began to pierce the darkness of life under smallpox.