Rotting Face (Smallpox) claimed an estimated 20,000 natives, doing even more damage to the Northern Plains tribes in one year than all the military expeditions ever sent against American Indians. Author R. G. Robertson details the history of smallpox and the profound impact the disease had in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, where it killed or maimed rich and poor, royalty and peasant. Robertson's gripping and graphic account dispels some popular myths about the role of whites in the spread of this devastating disease.