A Summer Plague is the most comprehensive and compulsive account of the rise and fall of epidemic poliomyelitis yet written. It takes the story from the first major outbreak of 'Infantile Paralysis' in New York in 1916 - which induced panic on a scale reminiscent of the great plagues of history - through to its lingering aftermath in the shape of the so-called, and still mysterious, Post-Polio Syndrome.

Tony Gould's account combines several strands, biographical, political and social as well as clinical and microbiological. He focuses on the individuals who were influential in the treatment and 'conquest' of polio, from the most celebrated polio sufferer of all, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to the scientific rivals in the dramatic race to produce a vaccine, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin.

The story also features FDR's lieutenant, Basil O'Connor, whose 'March of Dimes' became a byword for successful fund-raising, and Sister Elizabeth Kenny, the larger-than-life nurse from the Australian outback who challenged medical orthodoxy and invented 'miracle' cures.