The fight to eradicate polio
Tom Holland highlights histories that help us understand more about the background to today's important issues. This week, the Coventry polio epidemic and issues over vaccination.
Tom Holland and guests highlight histories that help us understand more about the background to some of today's important issues.
Helen Castor visits Coventry where, in 1957, one of the last polio epidemics hit the city. Local people were furious that widespread vaccination wasn't brought in, but the fledgling NHS simply didn't have enough stocks and medical experts were concerned about an American trial that had gone wrong. We learn that the government of the day were worried that Britain was entering a high-tech world without the skills that other countries had and was reluctant to bring in costly medicines from overseas, preferring that we develop our own.
The last time Parliament sat outside Westminster was in 1681, when it went to Oxford for a week. Today, with the government yet to finalise plans for the restoration and repair of the Palace of Westminster, we ask whether history might be made and a decision taken to move the engine of our democracy out to the shires once again, on a temporary basis. What can we learn from that short relocation over 300 years ago.
Top Town History features the home of Magna Carta, Egham, and the former-industrial powerhouse of Bury in Lancashire.
Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier production for Â鶹Éç Radio 4.
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Tom Holland is in the chair for this edition of Â鶹Éç Radio 4’s popular history magazine programme.
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The 1957 Polio Outbreak in Coventry
Helen Castor joins at the Coventry Archives to find out more about an epidemic some sixty years ago that was key in promoting changes in the way that vaccination was carried out against polio on the UK. The 1957 outbreak of polio was one of many at a time when researchers had found a drug to defeat this crippling disease, but there were problems in the way that it was distributed.
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The Death of the Aztecs
Researchers in Germany think that they are some way in identifying one of the diseases that wiped out the Aztecs after invasion by Europeans in the sixteenth century. Tom Holland talks to Ashild Vagene at the one of the researchers responsible for this work.
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Experts such as caution that the reasons why the Aztec population was hit so hard by disease are many and varied.
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Top Town History
Making History Listener Ross Belson returns as Egham faces the industrial past of Bury in Lancashire which is represented by Jean Foster.Ìý
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To suggest a town or a story for our team to look into email making.history@bbc.co.uk
History of the Vegetarian
meets author of Of Victorians and Vegetarians: The Vegetarian Movement in Nineteenth-century Britain, over lunch to discuss the historical roots of Veganuary and the rise in interest in following a vegetarian or vegan diet.
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Making History is a Pier Production for Â鶹Éç Radio 4
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Email making.history@bbc.co.uk
Broadcasts
- Tue 30 Jan 2018 15:30Â鶹Éç Radio 4
- Wed 19 Sep 2018 23:30Â鶹Éç Radio 4
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Making History
Popular history series where the past connects with the present.
