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.

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Loathing comic by Rob Bidder (promo)
  • Comic

Loathing

When self-loathing explodes like lava, leaving ashes all over your self-confidence.

Part of Body Squabbles

Pixellated photograph from a shopping mall security camera, where all adults have been crudely 'Photoshopped' out of the image, leaving one remaining child. The image has a red/pink tone applied to it.
  • Serial
Part1

Is fake news killing fictive art?

Parafictional artists create projects where the imaginary interacts with real life. But the growth of so-called ‘fake news’ is providing a new challenge.

Part of The Ethics of Deception

Photograph of a flat surface split between the colours blue and yellow on the diagonal. The yellow surface is raised slightly higher than the blue. A yellow male model figure sits, arms crossed on the edge of the yellow background. Three blue female model figures stand in discussion on the blue background.
  • Essay

Why are women more willing donors than men?

Why is there a gender imbalance when it comes to the donation of organs, blood and tissue, and what can be done about it?
Photograph of a rural landscape at dusk. In the background is a dramatic red sky. In the foreground is a spotlit plain stone grave.
  • Image gallery

Wool, fleas, plague

During the bubonic plague epidemic of 1665-6, the residents of Eyam in Derbyshire quarantined themselves to help prevent the disease spreading. Simon Norfolk tells the story of this small community’s sacrifice.
Happiness comic by Rob Bidder
  • Comic

Happiness

If happiness had a flavour, what would it taste like?

Part of Body Squabbles

Photograph of a young woman from behind, from the waist up. Her head is turned to the left revealing her profile. She is wearing a low cut black dress which reveals a long scar following her spine. In the background are drapes of blue and white fabrics.
  • Essay

Fashion for an unruly body

One weekend, just before an operation to correct her scoliosis, Rosalind Jana stopped trying to hide her body. Read how those two days helped her step into the future.
Photograph of an old red rotary phone receiver lying on its side on a white desk. Behind it is a blue felt desk back. between the earpiece and the mouthpiece is a Samaritans counseling service information leaflet in the shape of a flip mobile phone. on the front is written, 'Need 2 talk?'.
  • Essay

Life on the line

Former Samaritans helpline volunteer Katy Georgiou recalls the desperate voices she heard during her night shifts, and those whose isolation she helped to alleviate.
Photograph of a wood engraving from a 1869 newspaper, showing a depressive man holding an umbrella, standing by a country pond in the pouring rain. Beneath the engraving is the title, 'To sufferers from nervous depression'.
  • Image gallery

Finding the ‘men’ in mental health

Explore how ideas about masculinity have influenced the way men talk about and experience their mental health, from the 1800s to today.

Part of Inside Our Collections

Friendship comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Friendship

How did we find each other and what would we be if we hadn't?

Part of Body Squabbles

Photograph of part of a coloured aquatint of a man covering his mouth with a handkerchief, walking through a smoggy London street. In the background are two snorting horses and linkboys running about bearing burning torches. The other part of the photograph contains the dirt and dust from a vacuum cleaner bag.
  • Story

Dirt, disease and the Inspector of Nuisances

In the days when ‘bad air’ was thought to spread disease, dozens of Inspectors of Nuisances ceaselessly struggled against the perils of dirt – both visible and invisible.
Photograph of three people sat at a round table in a cellar. Behind them is a white brick wall with an arch. Their hands rest on the planchette of a ouija board. The image is toned green as a result of being made under infrared light.
  • Book extract

The psychology of Ouija

Explore the science behind table tilting and Ouija boards, and discover how the unscrupulous still make money from exploiting the ‘ideomotor’ effect.

Part of Inside Our Books

Photograph of a selection of toilet paper samples held together with paperclips, resting on a manilla envelope printed with the words "On Her Majesty's Service".
  • Image gallery

How Brits went soft on toilet paper

20th-century studies reveal a whole host of anxieties about the terrors of soft toilet paper.

Part of Inside Our Collections

Infant comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Infant

Sniffing, touching, poking, prodding. What if adults were treated like babies?

Part of Body Squabbles

Photograph showing two items of ephemera from the Wellcome library. Photographed on a wooden table, one item is promoting Hall's Coca Wine and reads "A marvellous restorative". The other is part of a drug awareness poster from the 1980/90s titled "Frank, drugs: the facts".
  • Essay

Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug

Today, cocaine has a very poor public image as one of the causes of crime and violence. But for the Victorians it was welcomed as the saviour of modern surgery.
Photograph of a burning joker card in a silver dish. On the card is the face of the 1920s mind reader, Alexander.
  • Essay

Western magic’s fascination with the foreigner

Could modern magic shows be perpetuating damaging cultural stereotypes? Shelley Saggar shows how ‘exotic’ costumes and imagery are far from harmless fun.
Photograph of two mole's feet on a stippled dark grey background, which are part of an amulet collection.
  • Image gallery

Moles’ feet, dried frogs and other folk medicines

Early-20th-century folklorist Edward Lovett made it his mission to discover the nation’s beliefs and superstitions, collecting amulets from cottage cupboards up and down the country.

Part of Inside Our Collections

Memory comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Memory

A memory is just the leftover carcass of your mind's creative metabolisation of the past.

Part of Body Squabbles

Photograph through a kaleidescope of the head of a man. His hands are held up in front of his face, with fingers outstretched, framing has eye. The background is made up of blue and red fabric.
  • Essay

Dynamo on the past, present and future of magic

The magician takes a tour and shares stories of history and inspiration.
Photograph of an early printed book open as a page where a previous owner has had a go at copying an illustration of a man playing a guitar like instrument. Next to the open book are a couple of paint brushes and a small dish with saffron leaves on it.
  • Essay

Medieval doodles

Fish, lute players and defaced demons: marginal doodles in some of Europe’s first printed books provide a tantalising glimpse into the late-medieval mind.

Part of Inside Our Collections

Photograph of a section of an oil painting in a gilded ornate frame, against a brick wall painted white. The oil painting shows a man letting blood from another seated man's arm. Beside them stands a woman holding a bucket. Waiting dates from 1610 to 1690.
  • Image gallery

Bloodletting at the barber-surgeon’s

Scratchy throat? Burning fever? Broken heart? It all comes down to the same issue: too much blood.

Part of Inside Our Collections