Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Skip to main content
48 results
  • AIDS & HIV : the facts and the fiction / AVERT.
  • AIDS & HIV : the facts and the fiction / AVERT.
  • 17, rue des genres : le sauna : "C'est juste une fiction" / Cunéo ; Crips Île-de-France.
  • 17, rue des genres : le sauna : "C'est juste une fiction" / Cunéo ; Crips Île-de-France.
  • An elderly woman reading a novel by the fire asks her maid to change her library books, with a preference for romantic fiction. Lithograph after R. Seymour.
  • Paeonia officinalis L. Paeoniaceae, European Peony, Distribution: Europe. The peony commemorates Paeon, physician to the Gods of ancient Greece (Homer’s Iliad v. 401 and 899, circa 800 BC). Paeon, came to be associated as being Apollo, Greek god of healing, poetry, the sun and much else, and father of Aesculapius/Asclepias. Theophrastus (circa 300 BC), repeated by Pliny, wrote that if a woodpecker saw one collecting peony seed during the day, it would peck out one’s eyes, and (like mandrake) the roots had to be pulled up at night by tying them to the tail of a dog, and one’s ‘fundament might fall out’ [anal prolapse] if one cut the roots with a knife. Theophrastus commented ‘all this, however, I take to be so much fiction, most frivolously invented to puff up their supposed marvellous properties’. Dioscorides (70 AD, tr. Beck, 2003) wrote that 15 of its black seeds, drunk with wine, were good for nightmares, uterine suffocation and uterine pains. Officinalis indicates it was used in the offices, ie the clinics, of the monks in the medieval era. The roots, hung round the neck, were regarded as a cure for epilepsy for nearly two thousand years, and while Galen would have used P. officinalis, Parkinson (1640) recommends the male peony (P. mascula) for this. He also recommends drinking a decoction of the roots. Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737), published by the College of Physicians, explains that it was used to cure febrile fits in children, associated with teething. Although she does not mention it, these stop whatever one does. Parkinson also reports that the seeds are used for snake bite, uterine bleeding, people who have lost the power of speech, nightmares and melancholy. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Paeonia officinalis L. Paeoniaceae, European Peony, Distribution: Europe. The peony commemorates Paeon, physician to the Gods of ancient Greece (Homer’s Iliad v. 401 and 899, circa 800 BC). Paeon, came to be associated as being Apollo, Greek god of healing, poetry, the sun and much else, and father of Aesculapius/Asclepias. Theophrastus (circa 300 BC), repeated by Pliny, wrote that if a woodpecker saw one collecting peony seed during the day, it would peck out one’s eyes, and (like mandrake) the roots had to be pulled up at night by tying them to the tail of a dog, and one’s ‘fundament might fall out’ [anal prolapse] if one cut the roots with a knife. Theophrastus commented ‘all this, however, I take to be so much fiction, most frivolously invented to puff up their supposed marvellous properties’. Dioscorides (70 AD, tr. Beck, 2003) wrote that 15 of its black seeds, drunk with wine, were good for nightmares, uterine suffocation and uterine pains. Officinalis indicates it was used in the offices, ie the clinics, of the monks in the medieval era. The roots, hung round the neck, were regarded as a cure for epilepsy for nearly two thousand years, and while Galen would have used P. officinalis, Parkinson (1640) recommends the male peony (P. mascula) for this. He also recommends drinking a decoction of the roots. Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737), published by the College of Physicians, explains that it was used to cure febrile fits in children, associated with teething. Although she does not mention it, these stop whatever one does. Parkinson also reports that the seeds are used for snake bite, uterine bleeding, people who have lost the power of speech, nightmares and melancholy. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Zorastro : a romance / by Creswick J. Thompson [pseud.].
  • Zorastro : a romance / by Creswick J. Thompson [pseud.].
  • Zorastro : a romance / by Creswick J. Thompson [pseud.].
  • Zorastro : a romance / by Creswick J. Thompson [pseud.].
  • A man holding an oil lamp and a dagger is standing next to a woman asleep in a canopied bed; Gothic window in the background. Coloured mezzotint, ca. 1800.
  • The ghost of Ravia, dressed in white with blood on her dress, appears to her husband Cazem during a storm at night, in front of Gothic ruins, and asks him to avenge her murder. Coloured aquatint, ca. 1810.
  • One of two scenes from the Naya-nayika set of lovers' quarrels. Chromolithograph.
  • A woman in a yellow jumper helping a sick man lying on the floor; an advertisement for a leaflet on facts on AIDS at Work by the Department of Health, New Zealand. Colour lithograph, 1990.
  • A line of people, including a person in a wheelchair, look out to a black city skyline representing an advertisement for a leaflet on facts on AIDS at Work by the Department of Health, New Zealand. Colour lithograph, 1990.
  • Max Joseph von Pettenkofer. Wood engraving, 18--, after J. Kriehuber.
  • A mug of coffee and a sandwich representing an advertisement for a leaflet on facts on AIDS at Work by the Department of Health, New Zealand. Colour lithograph, 1990.
  • A tree with five dollar notes representing an advertisement for a leaflet on facts on AIDS at Work by the Department of Health, New Zealand. Colour lithograph, 1990.
  • People living a life of fantasy as a result of being excessively influenced by reading novels. Coloured etching after G.M. Woodward, 1800.
  • People living a life of fantasy as a result of being excessively influenced by reading novels. Coloured etching after G.M. Woodward, 1800.
  • Place de la Concorde, Paris, with the Admiralty building being attacked by flying dragons, fish and horses. Etching by C. Meryon, 1866.
  • Place de la Concorde, Paris, with the Admiralty building being attacked by flying dragons, fish and horses. Etching by C. Meryon, 1866.
  • A London linen-draper's assistant reveals his true identity: he is not "Horatio Sparkins", an aristocratic man about town, but Mr Smith, an assistant in a down-market shop. Etching by George Cruikshank, 1839.
  • Portrait, possibly of Lili Elbe.
  • A futuristic vision: the advance of technology leads to rapid transport, sophisticated tastes among the masses, mechanization, and extravagant building projects. Coloured etching by W. Heath, 1829.
  • A futuristic vision: the advance of technology leads to rapid transport, sophisticated tastes among the masses, mechanization, and extravagant building projects. Coloured etching by W. Heath, 1829.
  • Paeonia mascula ssp arietina
  • Paeonia officinalis 'Flore Pleno'
  • Paeonia officinalis 'Flore Pleno'