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and most feared killer of its time.
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Now, in its history, the fact that a sufferer--
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and we mentioned this last time--
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who recovered possessed a robust,
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lifelong immunity to this disease was important.
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No one was naturally infected twice with smallpox.
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So, a typical pattern emerged in the cities of Europe,
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and that was that smallpox became an ever-present disease
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that most people who survived childhood had suffered.
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The adult population therefore possessed what we might call
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an extensive herd immunity to smallpox as a disease.
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So, it became an endemic disease of childhood.