Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600 - Video
Podcast
This course consists of an international analysis of the impact of epidemic diseases on western...
Medical Milestones and Crazy Cures: Book 2
Book
Think you know your Smallpox from your Bubonic Plague? Try testing your knowledge of the history of...
The Hemlock Cure
Book
It is 1665 and the women of Eyam keep many secrets. Isabel Frith, the village midwife, walks a...
Historical fiction The Black Death Bubonic Plague 1665-1666 Eyam
Murderous Contagion: A Human History of Disease
Book
Disease is the true serial killer of human history: the horrors of bubonic plague, cholera,...
ClareR (5721 KP) rated The Hemlock Cure in Books
Apr 6, 2023
The real evil isn’t a disease, it’s being shut in with people who clearly do not have good intentions.
The village of Eyam is well known for the decision to shut itself off from the outside world when its inhabitants started to become ill and die. They understood that the only way to halt the spread of the disease was to isolate themselves - a selfless act.
This novel looks at some of the families and their relationships inside and outside of their family units. The local apothecary and his daughter Mae, are one such family. Mae is desperate to be her fathers apprentice, but this isn’t a time in history where it’s safe for a woman to be working with herbs. So Mae studies with the midwife and a local wise woman (who are both also skating on thin ice, truth be told).
The plague wasn’t a constant in London it appears, and we travel there with one of the main characters. The contrast between the country village and London was quite something to read. I could almost smell the difference off the page!!
I enjoyed the pacing of this book: in Eyam the time crawls, whilst in London everything is all hustle and bustle.
The slow reveal of the terrible secrets in Mae’s family are not so much shocking as terrifying. Wulfric, Mae’s father, is not a well man. It seems to be a race against time for Mae.
I would most definitely recommend this book to historical fiction fans - and if you like a mystery, you may well like this as well.
Gold Fever: One Man's Adventures on the Trail of the Modern Gold Rush
Book
Have you ever imagined giving up your day job and heading for the hills in search of gold?...
365 Reasons to Look on the Bright Side: Because Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining
Book
365 Reasons to Look on the Bright Side is full to the brim with good fortune arisen out of the...
Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974) in Movies
Nov 23, 2020
The plot: British-made chiller about a blood-thirsty count who takes up residence in modern London to develop a new strain of bubonic plague, with the evil intention of annihilating all life on Earth.
Work began on what was tentatively titled Dracula is Dead...and Well and Living in London in November 1972.
The film itself is a mixture of horror, science fiction and a spy thriller, with a screenplay by Don Houghton, a veteran of BBC's Doctor Who. This is the problem its trying to be more sci-fi and a spy thriller than horror.
This was the final Hammer film that Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing would make together. The two stars would eventually reunite one more time in House of the Long Shadows, ten years later.
A huge let down.
Tea, Coffee & Chocolate: How We Fell in Love with Caffeine
Book
Did you know that coffee was recommended as protection against the bubonic plague in the seventeenth...
The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire
Book
A sweeping new history of how climate change and disease helped bring down the Roman Empire Here is...