It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's

podcast now in the mid-second century AD a deadly plague struck the Roman

Empire the Antenine plague and this is the topic of today's podcast we're

going to be looking at the spread of the plague we're going to be looking at the

plague in Roman Britain but we're also going to be looking at certain key

figures from this time in history we're going to be looking at Gaelin we're

going to be looking at Marcus O'Rellius and also a figure called Aristadides.

Now joining me to talk through all of these topics including what lessons we

can learn from the Antenine plague to apply in today's COVID pandemic I was

delighted to get on the show Dr Nick Sumerton. Nick has spent decades in the

medical industry he's been a GP he's been working during the COVID pandemic on

the front line and Nick is also a specialist in ancient Greco-Roman medicine.

So stay tuned for another podcast with Nick in the near future where we go into

incredible quite gory detail about Roman eye care and Roman eye surgery but in

the meantime here's Nick to talk about lessons from the Antenine plague.

Nick thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you very much. Now first

well thank you so much for your time because actually you're a doctor and you

have been on the front line during this pandemic. Yeah yes I've had a number of

roles that I've undertaken I've I did offers a GP I evolved into doing like

many of us video consultations and then doing some work for the 111 service

and then some advisory work on testing and symptoms because that's sort of

one of my main research interests but now I'm much more focused on well-being

...