Gareth Williams is Professor of Medicine and former Dean of Faculty at the University of Bristol, UK. He has written or co-authored over 20 books, including the Textbook of Diabetes (BMA Book of the Year, 1997) and has contributed to more than 30 others, including the Oxford Textbook of Medicine. Inspired by the life of Edward Jenner, Gareth wrote Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize in 2010.

A Gentle Introduction 1. A Plague from Nowhere 2. The Crippler 3. The Virus That Never Was 4. Germs of Ideas 5. Lost in Transmission 6. Fear is the Key 7. First Do No Harm 8. Dead or Alive 9. Front Runner 10. Poles Apart 11. In the Opposite Corner 12. Loose Ends and a Gordian Knot 13. Looking Forward to a Retrospective

The story of mankind's struggle against polio is compelling, exciting and full of twists and pardoxes. One of the grand challenges of modern medicine, it was a battleground between good and bad science. Gareth Williams takes an original view of the journey to understanding and defeating polio.