Articles

Our words and pictures explore the connections between science, medicine, life and art. Dive into one no matter where in the world you are.

1-20
Photograph of a multi-frame photo frame containing nine photographs, eight in colour and one in black and white. The frame is hung on a light green coloured wall above a blue tabletop.
  • Essay

Fleeing fear, defying prejudice

As teenage refugee Sedra Al-Yousef grappled with rebuilding her life and education in another country, at the same time she used compassion and humanity to demolish populist anti-refugee myths.

Part of Different Voices

Photograph of a multiframe photo frame containing eight photographs, seven in colour and one in black and white. The frame is hung on a cyan-coloured wall above a wood block tabletop.
  • Essay

A story of death, trauma and austerity

Marienna Pope-Weidemann, whose teenage cousin Gaia died after going missing, advocates a rethink of our systems, which currently fail many in mental distress.

Part of Different Voices

Photograph of a multiframe photo frame containing nine photographs, three in colour and six in black and white. The frame is hung on a brown wall above a white tabletop.
  • Essay

Leaving Mexico and finding refuge in hope

In Mexico, violence of all kinds – organised, street, domestic – is accepted as normal. From the UK, Laura Morales speaks out and fights to help those suffering back home.

Part of Different Voices

Photograph of a multi-frame photo frame containing nine photographs, one in black and white and eight in colour. The frame is hung on a yellow wall above a grey tabletop.
  • Essay

Rejecting shame and a decade of change

Jess Thom spent years trying to ignore and suppress the tics of Tourette’s syndrome. Read what happened when she decided to celebrate them instead.

Part of Different Voices

Massage comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Massage

Sometimes the road to relaxation is paved with discomfort

Part of Body Squabbles

Pencil and watercolour artwork drawn over an engraving which depicts a sky-scape of clouds with the sun shining across them. Drawn on the clouds is a reclining woman wearing a dress, reading a book. The warm orange and yellow hues of the sun stretch out into the blue hues of the sky and the clouds.
  • Serial
Part6

Pain and the power of activism

Today, women with endometriosis have more access to better information than ever before. Jaipreet Virdi applauds the shared stories, online communities and self-help books empowering women in pain.

Part of Painful realities

Photograph of the left hand side of a watercolour painting from 1826, depicting a physician examining a urine specimen in which a faint figure of a baby is visible, a female patient is crying and being shouted at by her angry mother, indicating that she is pregnant. To the left of the watercolour is a glass specimen bottle containing a yellow liquid. The bottle has a cork stopper inserted and 2 further cork stoppers are beside the bottle. The whole scene has been photographed against a bright solid yellow background.
  • Essay

Remote diagnosis from wee to the Web

Medical practice might have moved on from when patients posted flasks of their urine for doctors to taste, but telehealth today keeps up the tradition of remote diagnosis – to our possible detriment.

  • Image gallery

Medicine Now... then

A look back at highlights from Medicine Now, an exhibition from 2007 where artists and audiences explored the connections between contemporary medicine, life and art.

Vape comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Vape

To vape or not to vape, that is the question.

Part of Body Squabbles

Pencil artwork drawn over an engraving of a photograph from the early 1900s which depicts a vaginal hysterectomy. The patient is lying on an operating table, her legs stirrups, covered in a white cloth. She is surrounded by 19 people who are either involved in the operation or just observing. The group is made up of mainly men. The whole scene is black and white apart from the gowns of the surgeons and observers which are tinted red.
  • Serial
Part5

The search for a cure for endometriosis

Discover how a white American doctor’s experimental operations on black female slaves laid the foundations for modern gynaecological surgery.

Part of Painful realities

Ink cartoon drawing of a pair of hands with coffee foregrounding a woman looking pained holding a cup of coffee. Trees and a lamp-post in the background.
  • Essay

When depression is worse than physical illness

Chronic physical illnesses can be accompanied by troubling depressive symptoms. Elly Aylwin-Foster urges doctors to treat every aspect of her condition with the same care.

Painting of a Chinese man in grey robes holding a soft pillow.
  • Image gallery

Chinese pillow history

What is the ideal pillow? In Chinese culture, the ideal shifted over time, and views on a good sleep also reveal attitudes about studying, love, food and drink.

Part of Inside Our Collections

Scars comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Scars

Not every story has a scar, but every scar does have a story.

Part of Body Squabbles

Collage and illustration of a hospital X-Ray room. In the centre of the room is an unclothed woman sat on a black chair seemingly in pain with her eyes closed clutching her belly. Around her are various control boards with dials and x-ray like pictures on the wall. Through a doorway on the right there is a hospital bed with various X-ray apparatus over it. The image is primarily black and white, with the left side room having been coloured various shades of orange and red.
  • Serial
Part4

Demanding a diagnosis for invisible pain

After dozens of hospital visits and handfuls of painkillers, a plethora of scans and tests bring diagnosis closer for Jaipreet Virdi.

Part of Painful realities

Half-body self-portrait of Jo Spence, with her chest wrapped in white muslin secured with two nappy pins and a cross in blue marker pen on skin above her left breast.
  • Essay

Pain, politics and the power of photography

Art historian Giulia Smith explains what she most admires in the work of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, and how their approach makes illness political.

Photograph of a young woman and a mother figure in a domestic living room. The young woman is seated in a long dress and and the mother figure stands behind her, hands on her shoulders. They are both gazing out of the window.
  • Essay

A portrait of me with my mother

A series of portraits with stand-in mothers helped Camilla Greenwell to process her grief, and then to question whether our photograph albums are ever really honest.

Reminder comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Reminder

Feeling dizzy yet?

Part of Body Squabbles

Pencil artwork drawn over a lithograph depicting a large hall with stage. On the stage is a person standing at a lectern using a stick to point at a large (in scale) unclothed woman standing on a table with her arm covering her face. The woman belly has been depicted as red. At the foot of the stage is a crowd of men listening to the presentation. There are more figures working at various desks around the large hall, including one man using a microscope, another looking through a large telescope, and two others a standing over a large globe. Above the stage there is a clock that reads the time 14.45, and latin text that reads 'AMOR DOCTRINE EST ORNAMENTUM PUERI'. The whole scene is black and white with exception of the light being emitted from behind the stage, and the belly of the woman which are shades of orange and red.
  • Serial
Part3

Getting the measure of pain

In the 20th century doctors tried to find a way to measure pain. But even when ‘objective’ measures were rejected, an accurate understanding of another’s pain remained frustratingly elusive.

Part of Painful realities

Photograph of Misbehaving Bodies curator George Vasey sitting in the exhibition space. Behind him are the works of Jo Spence; in the form of photographs and tear sheets hung on white panels, and Oreet Ashery; in the form of a projection of a white figure moving against a white screen.
  • Interview

Inside the mind of George Vasey, co-curator of Misbehaving Bodies

Discover how curator George Vasey honoured the approaches of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, who mischievously subvert clichés around illness and death.

Part of Behind the Scenes

Photograph of a section of a Dutch watercolour in an ornate gilded frame. The painting depicts a 17th century birthing scene. In the top right of the frame is a lady in a period blue dress sitting up in a pink four-poster bed, talking to a maiden on her left side who is holding a baby wrapped in an orange blanket. There are four other ladies in the room; the central figure in a black dress, red skirt, and white ruff collar is leaning over to another lady in a golden dress on her right handing out food on a silver tray. In the bottom right of the scene is a lady in a pink and blue dress interacting with a small child.
  • Image gallery

Superstition, contagion and medical rumour

The great generator of confusion, rumours have not spared human health from their chaos. Find out how whispers, gossip and rumours have caused medical mishaps through the ages.

Part of Inside Our Collections