Smallpox Trivia
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60 free Smallpox trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Smallpox killed around 300 million people in the twentieth century alone and is the only human disease ever wiped out, and this smallpox trivia quiz covers the whole story. The medical questions take in the variola virus, the tell-tale dented blisters, why the rash on the palms and soles gave it away, the 30 percent death rate and the milder alastrim form. The history runs from the pockmarked mummy of Ramesses V and the Antonine Plague through the Aztec and Inca rulers it killed, the blankets at Fort Pitt, and the kings, queens, tsars and presidents who caught it. The prevention story starts with inoculation in China, Onesimus and Cotton Mather in Boston, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Constantinople and the Newgate prisoners, then Jenner, James Phipps and a cow called Blossom, the Balmis Expedition's chain of orphans and the first compulsory vaccination laws. Finally there is the eradication campaign: the Soviet proposal of 1958, Target Zero, ring vaccination, the bifurcated needle, Rahima Banu, Ali Maow Maalin, Janet Parker and the two frozen stocks that remain. Difficulty runs from easy to expert. Every answer was verified against Wikipedia's articles on smallpox, the vaccine and the people involved, and each question links to its source. Try our Vaccines and History of Medicine quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Smallpox holds what unique distinction among human diseases?
The only one ever eradicated
A commission of scientists certified its global eradication in December 1979.
Q 02Smallpox was caused by a virus of which genus?
Orthopoxvirus
Its relatives include cowpox, vaccinia and monkeypox.
Q 03The risk of death from smallpox was roughly what?
30%
Rates were higher among babies, and many survivors were left scarred or blind.
Q 04The characteristic smallpox blister had what distinctive feature?
A dent in the centre
The blisters scabbed over and fell off, leaving the pitted scars known as pockmarks.
Q 05Unlike chickenpox, the smallpox rash usually appeared on which parts of the body?
The palms and soles
The rash was densest on the face and on the hands and feet rather than the trunk.
Q 06Smallpox spread from person to person mainly through what?
Prolonged face-to-face contact
Contaminated objects such as bedding could rarely transmit it too.
Q 07The milder form of the disease, variola minor, was also known by what name?
Alastrim
It killed 1% or less of those infected, against roughly a third for variola major.
Q 08Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to how many people in the 20th century?
300 million
About 500 million died in the disease's final hundred years.
Q 09In 18th-century Europe roughly how many people died of smallpox each year?
400,000
A third of all blindness on the continent was blamed on the disease.
Q 10The name "smallpox" was coined in 16th-century England to distinguish it from which "great pox"?
Syphilis
Older names included the red plague and simply "the pox".
Q 11Which of these was a historical nickname for smallpox?
The speckled monster
The others were names for a Tudor fever, tuberculosis and scrofula.
Q 12Pockmarks on the mummy of which pharaoh, who died around 1145 BCE, are among the earliest physical evidence of smallpox?
Ramesses V
Written descriptions from ancient India may go back even further.
Q 13Which epidemic that swept the Roman Empire from 165 to 180 CE may have been smallpox?
The Antonine Plague
Scholars doubt earlier Mediterranean plagues were smallpox because Hippocrates never described it.
Q 21Which English queen, joint sovereign with William III, died of smallpox?
Mary II
Other royal victims included Emperor Joseph I of Austria and Tsar Peter II.
Q 22Which Tudor monarch survived smallpox in 1562?
Elizabeth I
Her half-sister Mary had survived it in 1527.
Q 23George Washington caught smallpox in 1751 while visiting which island?
Barbados
President Andrew Jackson also caught and survived the disease.
Q 24In 1775 George Washington ordered which body to be inoculated against smallpox?
Q 14Which saint became the patron of smallpox victims after supposedly surviving a bout in 450?
Nicasius of Rheims
Roch and Sebastian were invoked against plague instead.
Q 15Which 9th-century Persian physician wrote the first work clearly distinguishing smallpox from measles?
Rhazes
His Book of Smallpox and Measles remained a standard text for centuries.
Q 16Which Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan died of smallpox in 1520, shortly after the disease reached the Americas?
Cuitlahuac
He had ruled for only about 80 days after Moctezuma's death.
Q 17The 1527 smallpox death of which Inca emperor triggered a civil war that eased the Spanish conquest?
Huayna Capac
His sons Atahualpa and Huascar fought over the succession.
Q 18In 1763 blankets from a smallpox infirmary were handed to Delaware delegates besieging which British stronghold?
Fort Pitt
The commander, Henry Bouquet, ordered his subordinate Simeon Ecuyer to make the gift.
Q 19Which British commander wrote in 1763, "Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among the disaffected tribes of Indians?"
Jeffrey Amherst
A Massachusetts town and college still bear his name.
Q 20Which French king died of smallpox in 1774?
Louis XV
He had reached the throne only because smallpox and measles carried off those ahead of him in the succession.
The Continental Army
Inoculation with live smallpox was risky, but far less so than an epidemic in camp.
Q 25Which US president was quarantined with smallpox shortly after giving a famous 1863 speech?
Abraham Lincoln
He may have caught it from his son Tad.
Q 26Which Soviet leader fell ill with smallpox at the age of seven?
Joseph Stalin
The disease left him with a pockmarked face.
Q 27Which Japanese warlord lost an eye to smallpox?
Date Masamune
He was known as the One-Eyed Dragon.
Q 28Which Hindu goddess of smallpox was worshipped in temples across India?
Shitala
At least seven deities worldwide were dedicated to the disease, including Sopona of the Yoruba.
Q 29Inoculation with live smallpox to prevent severe disease appears to have begun around the 1500s in which country?
China
Europe adopted the practice from Asia in the early 18th century.
Q 30The Boston minister Cotton Mather learned of inoculation from whom?
Onesimus, an enslaved African man
Mather inoculated hundreds during Boston's 1721 outbreak, to fierce opposition.