146. Disease vs. the rise of civilisation

The Rest Is History

Goalhanger

History

4.6 • 18.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The way we die has been utterly transformed.

There have been around 10,000 generations of human beings, but only in the last 3 or 4 have infectious diseases not been an expected and accepted cause of death.

What drove the most deadly infectious diseases? Was technological progress and globalisation one of the key causes for its spread over the course of history?

Tom and Dominic are joined by Professor Kyle Harper from the University of Oklahoma to discuss the fascinating history of disease and how shifts in the way we die have changed our world completely.

Producer: Dom Johnson

Exec Producer: Tony Pastor

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for listening to the Rest Is History.
0:02.4	Now Christmas is coming and if you want to give a friend or a loved one a six month or
0:06.9	year long membership of the Rest Is History Club, just head to restishistrypod.com.
0:12.6	They will then receive bonus episodes, early access, ad free listening and access to our
0:17.6	exclusive chat room community.
0:20.2	Buy your gift at restishistrypod.com and make somebody's Christmas.
0:37.3	Toward the end of the 19th century and the United States and Britain, a great threshold was
0:41.8	crossed for the first time in the history of our species.
0:45.6	One infectious causes of death, cancer, cardiovascular disorders and other chronic and degenerative
0:50.7	diseases, accounted for a greater portion of total mortality than infectious diseases.
0:57.3	By 1915 an American social reformer could observe that a generation ago we would only
1:01.7	vainly mourn the deaths of children from disease.
1:04.8	Today we know that every dying child accuses the community.
1:08.4	The knowledge is available for keeping alive and well so nearly all that we may just
1:12.5	be said to sin in the light of the new day when we let any die.
1:17.4	By mid-century dying of infectious disease had become anomalous, virtually scandalous
1:23.6	in the developed world.
1:26.1	That is from plagues upon the Earth, disease and the course of human history, a brilliant
1:31.4	new book by Karl Harper who is professor of classics at the University of Oklahoma and
1:36.7	wrote fantastic book The Fate of Rome which he looks at how disease impacted on the
1:42.7	fall of the Roman Empire.
1:43.8	Karl is with us.
	...

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