A book in progress, edited by Gregry Livingston

Once in a Lifetime

A First-Hand History of Pandemics

Eyewitness writing about epidemics from ancient Athens to 1918, newly translated, with notes and classroom material.

See these sources on the map or on the timeline

Start here

“[The Peloponnesians] had been in Attica only a few days when the sickness first broke out among the Athenians. It was said to have struck many places before, around Lemnos and elsewhere. But no one could remember a plague so great, or so many people dying, anywhere.”
καὶ ὄντων αὐτῶν οὐ πολλάς πω ἡμέρας ἐν τῇ Ἀττικῇ ἡ νόσος πρῶτον ἤρξατο γενέσθαι τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις, λεγόμενον μὲν καὶ πρότερον πολλαχόσε ἐγκατασκῆψαι καὶ περὶ Λῆμνον καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις χωρίοις, οὐ μέντοι τοσοῦτός γε λοιμὸς οὐδὲ φθορὰ οὕτως ἀνθρώπων οὐδαμοῦ ἐμνημονεύετο γενέσθαι.

Thucydides, Athens, 430–429 BCE.

Read the passage

Teach this collection

Classroom units on Hearth Learning. Each asks one big question and gathers its sources, teacher notes, a worksheet for each source and a download for your LMS.

Unit 1Who gets blamed?Why do epidemics produce scapegoats?2 sources
Unit 2The healer's burdenWhat does an epidemic ask of those who care for the sick?4 sources
Unit 3Governments, quarantine, and consentWhen may authorities restrict people to stop a disease?3 sources
Unit 4Explaining disease before germsHow did people make sense of what they couldn't see?7 sources
Unit 5Faith and catastropheHow did religious believers respond, and did responses differ?7 sources
Unit 6After the plagueDid epidemics change societies, or did people go back to normal?3 sources
Unit 7Case study: smallpoxHow did a terrifying disease become the only one ever eradicated?6 sources
Unit 8Reading sources criticallyHow do we decide whom to believe?7 sources

Everything on Hearth Learning

Teach this collection

Sources

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6