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Ongoing reports and analysis

Kangxi, the great 17th-century emperor of China, owed his throne to smallpox. His father had died of the disease at just 22 years old in 1661. Kangxi, only 7 years old, had been chosen over his older brother because Kangxi had already survived smallpox—an epidemic that was cutting a scythe through the ruling elite.

Kangxi’s dynasty, the Qing, were Manchu, a steppe people who had conquered China in 1644. They had no concept of germ theory, but they could observe that the Chinese, living in far more crowded settlements than the northern nomads, often got the milder form of smallpox when young. Kangxi arranged for his whole family to be variolated, an early form of immunization in which healthy individuals were deliberately inoculated. In 1681, he ordered the same for the Manchu armies, eventually immunizing more than 4 million troops and their relatives.

Kangxi, the great 17th-century emperor of China, owed his throne to smallpox. His father had died of the disease at just 22 years old in 1661. Kangxi, only 7 years old, had been chosen over his older brother because Kangxi had already survived smallpox—an epidemic that was cutting a scythe through the ruling elite.

Kangxi’s dynasty, the Qing, were Manchu, a steppe people who had conquered China in 1644. They had no concept of germ theory, but they could observe that the Chinese, living in far more crowded settlements than the northern nomads, often got the milder form of smallpox when young. Kangxi arranged for his whole family to be variolated, an early form of immunization in which healthy individuals were deliberately inoculated. In........

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