Articles

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Rocks

Rock your body. Shake your stones. Dance like terminology doesn't matter.

“Each day brought a new obstacle I hadn’t considered”

I'm a 25-year-old autistic artist from Manchester. I have just moved from my first home away from my parents to a new apartment.

“Life and the universe change our plans”

Artist Lil Sullivan returns to the printmaking workshop for the first time after her stroke, and uses broken and discarded everyday objects …

“Disability is never an individual diagnosis”

As a 35-year-old man, I am sure that my fear of getting old is not uncommon. But for me, that fear goes deeper. I have spina bifida.

“People see the disability but forget the ability”

I’m a disabled Asian woman, and mother of four. I’m trying to show people that we have to talk about disability if we want things to change.

“Everybody desires a degree of independence”

I’m 26, and building a network of friends and my career. Unlike most people my age, I’m entirely dependent on carers to achieve this.

Milk

Milk makes us mammals. It's something we have in common with all sorts of other creatures.

The men who meddled with nature

The ‘acclimatisation societies’ of the 19th century sought to ‘improve’ on the natural world by releasing non-native species into the wild. …

Is your job bad for your teeth?

Some surprising occupations pose hidden risks to dental health. Could your ivories be in particular peril?

Sweat

Oh, the sweet smell of sweat! So pure and yet so full of skin bacteria dissolving in watery secretions.

Illuminated manuscripts, illuminating medicines

From rare bugs to exorbitantly priced plant parts, find out more about the artistic and medical uses of pigments from the past.

Sick of the theatre

What makes the stage a good place to share real-life experiences of ill health?

Intelligence

Intelligence might improve your social status, but social approval all depends on your attitude to it.

Born in the NHS

Despite underfunding, strikes and scandals, the first two decades of the 2000s has seen the British people’s love of and loyalty to the NHS …

Inside the minds of Teeth’s two curators, James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing

James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing talk visceral reactions, their interactions and object extractions.

Pills

Pills. Blister packed weapons for physical and psychological protection.

NHS Blue: the colour of universal healthcare

The 1980s and 1990s saw ideas from the world of business infiltrating the NHS, including the introduction of an internal market, followed by…

Could this be the loneliest kind of music?

Christine Ro explores the connection between shyness and shoegaze.

Maintenance

Scrub, moisturise, cut and clean. What's your essential maintenance routine?

National health in the decade of discontent

When the social unrest of the 1970s spread to the NHS, dissatisfied staff challenged the status quo for the first time in quarter of a centu…

Height

Whether tall or short, the height of your human can be both a hardship and a privilege.

Medics, migration and the NHS

In the 1960s the NHS became Britain’s biggest employer. So to help fill all those jobs, the government brought in thousands of workers from …

Living with young onset Parkinson’s

Ten years ago, three little words changed Pete Langman’s world.

Would you like to buy a unicorn?

The story behind why somebody tried to sell Henry Wellcome a unicorn head in 1928.

Groups

Be human. Join a group. Be sociable. Hate everyone.

Fees, funding and the NHS

In the 1950s, dramatic political battles over NHS charges brought down a government. But public confidence in the service still grew.

Inside the mind of Somewhere in Between’s curator, Laurie Britton Newell

The exhibition's curator shares her secrets.

Faces

Your face is a unique landscape. Do you like the terrain you see?

The birth of Britain's National Health Service

Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.

How to cure the eco-anxious

Could community activism be the key to overcoming a fear of environmental collapse?

Meditation

Empty your mind, stay calm, breathe and ignore the annoying s**t

Beating the bodysnatchers

When a rise in grave robbing called for strong measures, mortsafes became the unassailable solution. Allison C. Meier explores.

Synaesthesia, or when senses overlap

What’s it like to see heartbeats, taste Tube stations or hear paintings?

Fantasy

Your fantasies are limited only by your imagination. And sometimes a willing partner.

Getting around the rules of sex education

What should we and shouldn’t we teach our teens about sex, inside and outside of the classroom?

Breaking the rules of online dating

Artists are taking on the trolls of Tinder and the gremlins of Grindr to question the limits of online dating.

The bishop’s profitable sex workers

How did the Church rake in revenue from 14th-century sex regulations? Kate Lister explores a bishop’s lucrative rulebook.

The metamorphosis of masturbation

Throughout history, medics and campaigners have tried to stamp out masturbation – but is modern science transforming its reputation?

Spine

Bend it, shake it, move it. Just don't break it.

Picturing mental health

Ron Hampshire created artworks while resident at Netherne psychiatric hospital. What can we learn from them?

The art of scientific glassblowing

Exciting things happen when art, craft, engineering and science collide. Glassblower Gayle Price is proof of that.

Mouth

What kinds of flora and fauna do you cultivate in your mouth?

The quest to breed gifted children

If you had the chance, would you choose a genius baby?

Research Notes: Doctors and the English seaside

Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.

Sun

Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo)

Political brilliance and the power of self-promotion

How do you convince people you’re exceptional? Meet the ultimate self-styled genius.

You know the drill

Richard Barnett opens wide the true meaning of a healthy mouth.

Hierarchy

Ranked, graded and ordered into a structure that bestows and denies authority. But for who?

Tragic artists and their all-consuming passions

Does having a debilitating disease help or hinder creative genius?

Research Notes: Uncovering experiences of dementia

Focusing on three 19th-century women’s case notes, Millie van der Byl Williams explores how our definition of dementia has changed.

Smell

Sniffling and snuffling invite odour molecules to a party in your body

The enduring myth of the mad genius

There’s a fine line to tread between creativity and psychosis.

Book design, dissected

Gwen Smith talks to art director Peter Dyer about imagery, colour, type and staying true to the pages within.

Tongue

From an indicator of health to a taster of flavour your tongue is a very mighty muscle!

Sigrid Rausing’s prescription for writing

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘Stay With Me’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

Genius spirits and the mystery of creative inspiration

Once upon a time, we all had a genius.

The amateur silversmith

It started as hobby and soon became a passion. Geraldine Holden tells us where the art and science of silver unite.

Heart

Tune in to the beat of your heart. What does it say?

Exceptional talent and the trouble with IQ tests

Is a high IQ really a mark of genius, or does something else explain the exceptional?

Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s prescription for writing

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘Stay With Me’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

Diagnosis

Do you manage your diagnosis, or does your diagnosis manage you?

You, a thousand years ago

Jack Hartnell argues that, if we were transported into the medieval past, we’d find ourselves somewhere different yet strangely familiar.

Kathryn Mannix’s prescription for writing

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘With the End in Mind’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

You

What if your body was just a host landscape for another sentient creature?

Indian botanicals and heritage wars

Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.

Lindsey Fitzharris’s prescription for writing

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘The Butchering Art’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

The hidden meanings inside these 1920s Easter egg postcards

There’s something unexpectedly flirtatious and flamboyant about the smart young people featured in these French postcards.

Senses

Senses. We've all got them. But how do they work?

Native Americans and the dehumanising force of the photograph

In the second part of Native Americans through the 19th-century lens, we delve deeper into the ambivalent messages within the images.

Mark O’Connell’s prescription for writing

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘To Be a Machine’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

Drugs

They're good for you. They're bad for you. They are drugs.

Native Americans through the 19th-century lens

The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.

Meredith Wadman’s prescription for writing

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘The Vaccine Race’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

Fingernails

Fingernails help us to do all sorts of things, consciously or absent-mindedly.

Forensic sculpture and the uncannily human clay heads

"There is a point when there are suddenly twice as many people in the class."

Race, religion and the Black Madonna

Mystery and controversy surround the dark-skinned religious icon who represents the Virgin Mary throughout the Catholic world.

Shapes

We’re all different shapes and sizes.

A woman of courage and ability

A Jamaican election banner reveals the story of a pioneering women’s rights campaigner who continues to inspire 80 years on.

Research Notes: A reflection on art in a mental hospital

Artist Beth Hopkins explains how she used her experience of researching the Adamson Collection to create an embroidered wall hanging.

Eat

Chemical chatter and digestive dialogue can make for some stimulating conversation.

Found items

Books leave their traces in our minds, but we leave traces of ourselves in books too, as these fascinating items found inside old works show…

Migraine, creativity and me

Novelist Lydia Ruffles explores how migraine has made her mind stretch, shrink, widen and change, and how it’s influenced her art.

Therapy

Letting it all out can often feel better than keeping it all in.

Questioning the psychoanalyst

Maggie Robbins gives her personal take on the common misconceptions around her field of work.

A history of mindfulness

Matt Drage asks how an ancient religious practice has become a secular cure for stress.

Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages

The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.

Laughter

The loudest medicine.

The year of the dog

The relationship between dogs and humans goes back a long way. These pictures from our archives show some of the highs and lows.

Lovesickness and ‘The Love Thief’

An 11th-century poem of love, lust and possibly gruesome death still resonates today.

Smile

Check you’re happy when the smile police are on patrol.

Yoga adapts to time and place

A yoga teacher in 1930s India inspired today’s transnational practice with his spectacular fusion of tradition and innovation.

Inside the mind of Ayurvedic Man’s curator, Bárbara Rodriguez Muñoz

The choices a curator makes – what goes in? what stays out? why? – are often as fascinating as the exhibition itself.

Birthmarks

What do their shapes tell us?

Sun salutations and yoga synthesis in India

Surya namaskars, or sun salutations, have a long history in South Asia, but their place at the heart of modern yoga is more recent.

Spice of Life: Black pepper to fuel fiery fights and cure haemorrhoids

This common condiment was once very valuable and, until surprisingly recently, used as a versatile medicine.

Yoga

Is yoga class a good time to let go of inhibitions?