Sores, sweat and secretions: the pox in early modern London

HistoryExtra podcast

HistoryExtra

History

4.3 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With sinful associations and incredibly painful symptoms, the pox could be a damning diagnosis in the early modern period. In this episode, Olivia Weisser speaks to Charlotte Vosper about the pox-ridden world of London in the era. She takes us behind the doors of medical practitioners, on to the streets in search of cures, and into the city's courtrooms. ----- GO BEYOND THE PODCAST If you'd like to find out more about historical diseases and their (rather tortuous) treatments, then check out this HistoryExtra article by Dr Elma Brenner about the reality of medieval medical treatments for the Black Death: https://bit.ly/3NcZ5Od Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:05.6	In early modern London, no one wanted to admit to having the pox.
1:13.6	With sinful associations and excruciating symptoms, the pox came with shame, pain and silence. So how do you study a disease that nobody
1:21.1	ever admitted to having? Well, Olivia Weiser has done just that, and in this episode of the
1:26.7	History Extra podcast, she speaks to Charlotte Vosper about the po. And in this episode of the History Extra podcast,
1:28.2	she speaks to Charlotte Vosper
1:29.6	about the pox-ridden world of early modern London.
1:33.7	So I think we should start by asking,
1:35.7	what is the pox?
1:37.0	You know, what disease are we talking about here?
	...

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