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Jenner, who involved himself very much in getting the smallpox vaccine around in his native county of Gloucestershire, did not live to see his (somewhat modified) brainchild facilitate the eradication of smallpox from the face of the earth. The end of this plague is one which today inspires hope in the campaigners who travel to the ends of the earth with various vaccines. Vaccination is given in combination with surveillance containment of the target disease itself, at the behest of bigger and bigger bodies that are doing everything they can to recruit as many vaccinators and resources as possible. In the last pages of the book, Rhodes leaves behind the looming, dark clouds of continued refusal and avoidance of vaccination, and the creation of potential bio-weapons (consisting of the existing reservoirs of smallpox in a handful of countries). Instead, he expresses a wish to be able to tell Jenner the following concerning a plague poised to become the second one to be vanquished: ''the name of the last person in history to be naturally infected with polio''.

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