London Month of the Dead

GREAT PLAGUES - Pandemics of Past and Present with Vanessa Harding and Christopher Dye Saturday 17th October at 3:30 pm It’s popularly thought that 17th-century London was overcrowded, filthy and awash with sewage, an epidemic disaster waiting to happen. It’s certainly true that the plague of 1665 killed at least 70,000 Londoners and probably thousands more, and that victims’corpses were buried in emergency mass graves around the metropolis, from Shoreditch to Soho. But there are still questions about the epidemic - what caused it? What was its social impact? And what lessons does it have for modern epidemiologists? In her talk, VANESSA HARDING will review our changing knowledge of the Great Plague Pandemics have continued to make headlines over recent years with scares over SARS, H5N1 and Swine Flu. In 2014 it was Ebola which multiplied rapidly, spreading from West Africa to Dallas, New York, London and Madrid, causing fear of a global pandemic. Yet none of these diseases have taken hold in the developed world. In his talk, CHRIS DYE, the director of strategy in the World Heath Organisation will explain why Ebola has been a disaster for West Africa but not elsewhere, and what diseases we should really fear as potential causes of mass fatalities in the 21st century. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Vanessa Harding is Professor of London History at Birkbeck, University of London. She published a major comparative study of burial in Paris and London 1500-1670, in 2002. She writes and teaches on aspects of family, housing, health and disease, and death in early modern London. Chris Dye is Director of Strategy in the Director General’s Office at the World Health Organisation, Geneva, where he investigates the spread and control of tuberculosis, Ebola and other contemporary plagues. He is a Visiting Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of The Royal Society and of The Academy of Medical Sciences. Tickets £12 including a Hendrick's Gin Cocktail. Please click here to buy.

GREAT PLAGUES - Pandemics of Past and Present with Vanessa Harding and Christopher Dye
Saturday 17th October at 3:30 pm

It’s popularly thought that 17th-century London was overcrowded, filthy and awash with sewage, an epidemic disaster waiting to happen. It’s certainly true that the plague of 1665 killed at least 70,000 Londoners and probably thousands more, and that victims’corpses were buried in emergency mass graves around the metropolis, from Shoreditch to Soho. But there are still questions about the epidemic - what caused it? What was its social impact? And what lessons does it have for modern epidemiologists? In her talk, VANESSA HARDING will review our changing knowledge of the Great Plague

Pandemics have continued to make headlines over recent years with scares over SARS, H5N1 and Swine Flu. In 2014 it was Ebola which multiplied rapidly, spreading from West Africa to Dallas, New York, London and Madrid, causing fear of a global pandemic. Yet none of these diseases have taken hold in the developed world. In his talk, CHRIS DYE, the director of strategy in the World Heath Organisation will explain why Ebola has been a disaster for West Africa but not elsewhere, and what diseases we should really fear as potential causes of mass fatalities in the 21st century.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Vanessa Harding is Professor of London History at Birkbeck, University of London. She published a major comparative study of burial in Paris and London 1500-1670, in 2002. She writes and teaches on aspects of family, housing, health and disease, and death in early modern London.

Chris Dye is Director of Strategy in the Director General’s Office at the World Health Organisation, Geneva, where he investigates the spread and control of tuberculosis, Ebola and other contemporary plagues. He is a Visiting Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of The Royal Society and of The Academy of Medical Sciences.

Tickets £12 including a Hendrick's Gin Cocktail. Please click here to buy.

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