ABSTRACT
Health and security both involve survival and so these concepts are deeply intertwined; they probably have been since our ancestors first started to fear death. While we each may experience health most acutely as individuals, the association between individual health and the well-being of social groups – including the metaphorical “body politic” – is also ancient and powerful. Sometimes this association is no mere metaphor. Infectious diseases have threatened national and international security throughout our history, just as conflict and instability have long spread diseases and threatened human health in other ways. These interactions have been documented at least since Thucydides described the Plague of Athens during the Peloponnesian War.
