Nothing to be Alarmed About

In deciding to call the book ‘Nothing to be Alarmed About’, I never considered an alternative: it reminded me of the famous joke in Dads’ Army when Corporal Jones starts shouting “Don’t Panic! Don’t Panic”.

More seriously, the claim ‘Nothing to be Alarmed About’ captures the fundamental contradiction facing Medical Officers of Health in Britain in 1938: on the one hand they didn’t want to create a panic, but on the other they wanted to forewarn the public of the disease and to urge them to take precautions. How they attempted to do this is at the heart of the book.