痘

smallpox

Kanji 1654

Find out how smallpox once killed a third of the Japanese population. See how Japan did and did not respond to the smallpox epidemic in the Edo era. Learn terms for “smallpox,” “smallpox vaccine,” “chickenpox,” “monkeypox,” “pockmark,” “pockmarked face,” and more. Also discover how smallpox connects to cows, seeds, dimples, sci-fi imaginings, and a former pond in Tokyo.