When a deadly pathogen arrives, is human nature wired to flee or to build a wall and lock yourself inside the infection zone? This episode dives into Eyam, the Derbyshire village that chose self-quarantine during the Great Plague of 1665-66, one of the most extreme documented cases of community self-isolation in history, and the layers of myth, skepticism, and science that surround it.

We trace how a bundle of flea-infested cloth from London sparked the outbreak, how rival clergymen Mompesson and Stanley united to seal the village and run a contactless supply system with vinegar-soaked coins, and the staggering human cost, like Elizabeth Hancock burying her husband and six children in eight days. We then examine the skeptics who called it a misguided tragedy, the claim it was a Victorian marketing myth, and the modern genetics that vindicat ...