Actually, I don’t know if this is a bug or a feature of the game.
One of my villagers got smallpox. My settlement didn’t have much medicine and because of the fear of spreading it, instead of letting this villager go home to find medicine (as default), I decided to have this villager scout the map and then commit suicide by going to a bandit camp or fighting a bear.
However, surprisingly, after more than a month, this disease suddenly disappeared.
If you read the tooltip for Smallpox, you’ll learn that it has no cure, and the healer’s house or hospital only serves to quarantine them (where the patient will no longer spread it to nearby villagers). The disease runs its course, and the villager lives or dies (20-30% death chance, I think) at the end of it.
If so, this is even more absurd.
Usually players will place the hospital in the center of the settlement, when a villager gets smallpox, they will usually immediately move straight to the hospital. The problem here is that on the way they will come into contact with many villagers passing by and spread the disease.
If so, when the first case of smallpox appears, the best way is to control this sick villager to a deserted area so that he does not come into close contact with any villagers on the way. If there is enough food and related items, this villager will survive and vice versa. After all, losing one villager is better than the whole settlement having an outbreak with hundreds of deaths.
BTW: it would be interesting if the game had a feature to spread the disease to raiders. I would send a sick villager to visit their lair and wait for the disease to spread there :v
Smallpox is a virus, no medicines for almost all of history could do anything against it.
When they come demanding gold, give them some infected Clothing too. It won’t help you at all, but a thing will pop up and tell you how many of those raiders ended up dying for a little bit of satisfaction.