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IN MAY, the World Health Organization met to discuss the fate of the last samples of the smallpox virus – now living only in labs in the US and Russia. Yet just 50 years ago, before legions of public-health workers made it reality, eradication seemed impossible.

In House on Fire, William H. Foege, former chief of the Smallpox Eradication Program at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, writes a mixture of memoir, dry public health guide and riveting tale of an all-consuming mission. He describes the early days of convincing the WHO to prioritise eradication, ensuing vaccination efforts and the strategy that ultimately banished the disease in 1977: surveillance and containment.

Like rushing to a house on fire and dousing the flames, Foege and colleagues raced to smother smallpox wherever it erupted – an approach that changed history.