Smallpox, subfecundity, and sterility: a case study from a nineteenth-century Dutch municipality

SUMMARY This paper scrutinizes the claim that smallpox can limit male fertility. The approach is a longitudinal analysis of the marital fertility of a cohort of male smallpox survivors from a nineteenth-century Dutch municipality. Survivors of smallpox infection apparently had similar marriage, sterility, and fecundity rates to the general population. It is argued that smallpox was of no significance as an aetiological factor in male infertility.