Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health
Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health
Pustules, Palaeogenetics and Pandemics from Galen to Rhazes: How to do the Early History of Smallpox and Measles (2025 – 2030) is an interdisciplinary research project based in the CCEH and the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter and funded by a Wellcome Discovery Award.
The focus of the project is a multi-layered investigation into the history of smallpox, measles, and similar feverish, pustular infectious diseases in Afro-Eurasia from the second to the tenth century CE. The project team aims to re-present the complex history and development of these diseases by bringing together extensive body of writings in Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic, with new genetic and scientific evidence, and therefore develop a better understanding of past societies, particularly as a resource for current scientific research into human health and illness.
