A Primer on Monkeypox

Reviewing medical history to forecast future disease

Feet of a vaccinated patient, 12th day of eruption. Credit: St Bartholomew’s Hospital Archives & Museum. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Headlines began appearing last month: monkeypox, a zoonotic (usually occurring in animals) Orthopoxvirus, has infected humans — and it’s spreading. The World Health Organization reports nearly 200 cases of monkeypox in countries not “usually known to have outbreaks,” and in the wake of the novel coronavirus, panic has begun to spread.What…