This is a tale of how a medical technology was adapted, revised and presented to ad illiterate public through house-to-house health education by a small army of dedicated health workers. Through a decade of persistent work, the entire BRAC organization initiated this ambitious programme, and inspite of all skepticism from the global public health community, carried the science of oral therapy into every home in Bangladesh. Never before, or since, has a public health effort of this intensity been tried. Never before has health education been provided under such rigorous and cost effective circumstances with constant monitoring and evaluation, resulting in improved implementation at progressively lower unit cost. Readers of this book will find numerous lessons, not only for the application of oral rehydration therapy, but for the implementation of public health programmes of all sorts in countries round the world, and a guideline to good development strategies in every sector. This is health history at its best. — Jon E Rohde UNICEF Representative, New Delhi (From the Foreward to the book).