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Christmas is great, but there's loads of ways to make it better

like sneaking some chili into the gravy for some extra oms

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Pepsi Max. Hello and welcome to the history of China. Episode 144, only a northern song.

Life and death in the pre-modern world were intimately intertwined in a way that is often difficult for the modern mind,

or at least to those of us in the developed world with access to high-speed internet, hospitals,

Uber and antibiotics to truly comprehend. It was the great equalizer, whether one was of the lowest

cast in society or the highest echelon's of nobility, disease and death took very little notice

and laid low pauper and prints alike.

Disease was as endemic and sudden as it was mysterious and inexplicable.

It could be caused by things as obvious as malnutrition or open wounds left to fester,

or could steal in silently and invisibly, seemingly without

rhyme or reason, striking down the infirm and the strong alike, while leaving others unaccountably

untouched, save for their grief at those suddenly taken away forever.

Plagues and pestilence were common, if terrible, occurrences, and nowhere as much as the densely populated

urban centers of China, where the world and rush of humanity and

commerce mixed together with its own refuse, as well as those of the animals that lived and died in close

proximity, shared their food and sleeping places, and mingled their own filth with that of the people.

This of course included those animals that humans wanted to have around, goats, pigs,

...