Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time Podcast.

For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. UK forward slash radio for I hope you enjoy

the program. Hello the Book of Exodus makes clear that when God wants to strike man he

does so with plague and disease.

For millennia, epidemics were understood exactly that way as acts of divine retribution,

a force of nature that could devastate empires and annihilate great sways of population at a stroke.

From the bubonic plague to measles, from cholera to smallpox,

epidemics have constantly reshaped our world, leaving destruction and often huge social upheaval in their wake.

Before advanced science, what defenses did humankind have?

How much did the ancient Greeks understand of the root causes of disease?

What were the social and political consequences of the Black Death of 14th century Europe

which wiped out it said a third of the population?

How did the scientific breakthroughs of the 19th century and the discovery of germ theory alter people's perceptions of disease.

And is it possible to arrive at a disease-free society?

With me to discuss this, Dr. An Hardy, reader in the History of Medicine at the Welcome Trust Center at University

College London.

...