Bacteria. Fungi. Viruses and Parasites. These little beings surround us, live on us, often make us sick and sometimes change history! Microbes are so contagious, they’ve infected our culture and can be found lurking in classic fiction, modern literature and other forms of art and expression.

The world our ancestors lived in, not so very long ago, – a world without antibiotics and without understanding of germ theory, was often afflicted by serious epidemics and frightening plagues. Nowadays, we have a deeper understanding of how these wee bugs cause sickness, although if we’ve learnt anything from recent epidemics like Ebola, it is how vulnerable we still are.

This blog is my way of exploring how people in the past and present experience the microbial world, through the glimpses we glean from stories and tales based on true or imagined events. Stay tuned for infectious reads about plague doctors, sci-fi epidemics and how your favourite literary characters got their chilblains, poxes and lurgies!