Four true stories of pioneering investigations in the field of pathology, dramatised by Michael Butt from `The Ghost Disease and Other Stories' by Michael Howell and Peter Ford. �Now, if you like nothing more than sitting down to your lunch and thinking about death and diseases, then you�re in luck. This week there�s the chance to hear The Medical Detectives - it�s one of those programme titles that really does what it says on the tin. It�s a series of dramas based on real cases: there�s a Cholera outbreak in Soho in 1854; two ambitious young doctors tackle yellow fever in 19th-century Cuba; a strange epidemic among middle-class inhabitants of a quiet Essex suburb (and I don�t mean shell-suits and bad perms); and death in the Arctic. This cheery lunch-time listening has an impressive cast on hand: Bill Nighy, Nicky Henson (he�s in Eastenders), Peter Capaldi (brilliant as the foul-mouthed spin doctor in The Thick of It), Ed Bishop (UFO, Philip Marlowe), Ken Stott (Messiah, Rebus), and Clive Merrison (he�s Mr Sherlock, y�know). You can mix your lunch with diseases - not literally, I hope - by listening to �The Medical Detectives�.� Episode 1: Death In The Parish - When cholera strikes Soho in 1854, the Rev Henry Whitehead calls in the brilliant but mercurial Dr John Snow to investigate. Episode 2: The Epping Jaundice - It is odd enough that a quiet Essex suburb should develop its own unique epidemic, but what really baffles Dr Ash is that the victims are all middle class. Episode 3: That Last Infirmity - Charged with unravelling the tangle of folk tales and bad science obscuring the causes of yellow fever in Cuba in 1898, Doctors Carroll and Lazear resort to extreme methods. Episode 4: The Stranded Eagle - Years after three explorers died attempting to cross the Arctic, investigators start to piece together events.