History of Epidemics Since 1600.

There's a free open course available on the impact of epidemics on European history, given at Yale.

http://oyc.yale.edu/history/epidemics-in-western-society-since-1600

Smallpox is covered, as is the plague and others. I won't claim the presentation is exactly exciting -- but it's thorough and interesting.

Curious resonance: This movie has scenes of people refusing indignantly to be vaccinated against smallpox. They're individualists. They'll decide what they want to do. Nobody's going to force them to do anything. (What they'll do is die of smallpox without the vaccination.) As I write this, one of the candidates for Republican president of the United States is being criticized by many voters for compulsory vaccinations in high school against a sexually transmitted disease in his home state of Texas. The criticisms are based on the same libertarian objections.