A dramatic and entertaining account with poignant use of letters and diaries. The people of Sussex bravely risked the process of inoculation introduced by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu while not greeting Edward Jenner’s later discovery of vaccination with wholehearted enthusiasm. The 1950s Brighton outbreak is detailed is is the possibility of the virus becoming a weapon of mass destruction.
Defying the Demon – Smallpox in Sussex, Dale House Press, illustrated. £9.99.
Diana Crook Books 