The world's worst diseases

Jake and Lea end up in the trading town of Birka, in the middle of the Viking Age. After a nasty fight in the village, the children get infected wounds and suffer from gangrene. The doctors of the time are reminiscent of healers and the children get to try both the laying on of hands and making offerings in their attempts to recover from their illness. Will Jake and Lea survive, or will they receive a true Viking burial?

The year is 1773 and when Emmi and Lea are guilty of vagrancy, they end up in prison at Långholmen in Stockholm. After a few weeks in the dirty and crowded environment, they both suffer from typhus, a really nasty disease that is transmitted by clothes lice. Although the doctor tries to cure Emmi and Lea both with death's powder and "wine in the left shoe", the future is uncertain for our two guinea pigs.

When Jake and Anna work as miners in the 19th century, they are struck by the terrible disease stone dust lung. As if that wasn't enough, they are also involved in a mining race and are seriously injured! At the mining hospital, the doctor does his best to cure the two children - they even get to try the newfangled physiotherapy. But the question is, does it help?

When Mario and Emmi end up in Uppsala in the 1760s, they suffer from one of the most common diseases of that time, namely malaria. Unfortunately, in the 18th century, very little was known about the disease, and just as little about how to treat or cure it. Mario and Emmi are offered strong drinks, forced to bathe fully clothed and finally meet their fate in "dead or alive". How will it go?

Life in the country is anything but easy when the year is 1793. Max and Mario have to work hard milking cows, picking eggs and shoveling poo all day! They hardly get anything to eat and drink and as if that wasn't enough, they have the misfortune of getting jaundice. The "wise man's" attempts to cure them don't seem to be the most successful so the big question is: how will our guinea pigs fare?

Emmi and Max end up at a party with Queen Kristina herself when the year is 1650. There is a lot of feasting among the upper class at this time and Max and Emmi are treated to everything from fried turkey to pike sausage. After far too many goodies, they unfortunately suffer from gout and suffer from aging and swelling and bad bumps on their hands. Doctors of the time, called city doctors, try to cure the children with, among other things, urine, a bloody ax and a dog! Will these drugs be able to save Emmi and Max?

On a nice car trip with coffee and a bath in 1950s Sweden, Emmi and Mario are exposed to the dreaded polio virus and become paralyzed. At the doctor's, they are forced to drink coffee and are subjected to electric shocks and water gymnastics without visible improvement. Will Emmi and Mario survive the dreaded epidemic?

In the middle of a midsummer celebration in the year 1544, Anna and Jake accidentally poison themselves and an entire village with poisonous flour, and everyone who participates in the celebration suffers from draft sickness. With terrible symptoms such as itchy rashes, tingling in the body and hallucinations, it is not easy for the doctor of the time, the barber, to get the children to crawl again. Will they make it out alive? And is it perhaps that Anna is a witch?

It is poor and scarce in Småland when the year is 1869. So Erik decides to take Lea and Max and Grandma to the "land of the future" USA. Unfortunately, the disease measles strikes and prevents them from traveling. And instead, Erik has to do his best to cure the two children with licorice roots, earth spit cream and dead spirits. Will they survive the nasty virus? And how will it go for grandma?

Jake and Anna end up so far back that you hardly know what time it is. In the New Stone Age, people have just started living in villages together and because they have a poor grasp of hygiene and what infections animals and people can spread to each other, the children and the villagers suffer from whipworm infection. The village shaman does his best to cure tired and malnourished Anna and Jake with the help of song, dance and power animals. But does it really help with the nasty infection?