Thucydides saw plague as a disease of the ‘body politic’ – and an opportunity to improve the health of society. History shows that pandemics have a way of disrupting our assumptions about medical and social progress. Read by Leighton Pugh. 

Image: A 19th-century color lithograph, with the caption 'Cholera Tramples the Victor and the Vanquish'd Both,' depicts a giant skeleton trampling over a battlefield. Credit: Bettmann