DA Henderson

DA Henderson—he was always DA, no one remembers quite how or why, but the moniker stuck early—became the man most identified with eradication of smallpox. He was the right man at the right time to lead the thousands of public health workers across the globe who achieved that remarkable goal.

Smallpox marked the story of human history from the time of the pharaohs, just as it scarred the face of those it infected but did not kill. It was an indispensable ally of Europeans in their conquest of the Americas because it has no animal reservoir, and the native populations had not carried it in their small migrations from the old world to the new. Hundreds of generations without exposure to the virus left them particularly vulnerable to European invaders carrying the pathogen.

The modern era of smallpox vaccination began with Edward Jenner in 1796. By the middle of the 20th century the disease had became rare in the industrialised world but continued to run rampant in poorer regions. Rapid and increased global travel after the second world war and the highly contagious nature of smallpox meant that societies had to be vigilant against its reintroduction.