Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
70 results
  • A medical author seated at his desk, writing, a herbal on his lap. Engraving by P. Aubry, ca. 1657.
  • Above, a woman personifying health addresses Death; below, Apollo, attended by an agitated crowd of patients, heals a sick man; representing the medical writings of Frederik Dekkers. Etching.
  • Mary Putnam Jacobi, M.D., a pathfinder in medicine : with selections from her writings and a complete bibliography / edited by the Women's Medical Association of New York City.
  • Cynara cardunculus L. Asteraceae. Cardoon, Globe Artichoke, Artechokes, Scolymos cinara, Cynara, Cinara. Distribution: Southern Europe and North Africa. Lyte (1576) writes that Dodoens (1552) could find no medical use for them and Galen (c.200 AD) said they were indigestible unless cooked. However, he relates that other authors recommend that if the flower heads are soaked in strong wine, they 'provoke urine and stir up lust in the body.' More prosaically, the roots boiled in wine and drunk it cause the urine to be 'stinking' and so cures smelly armpits. He adds that it strengthens the stomach so causing women to conceive Male children. He goes on to say that the young shoots boiled in broth also stir up lust in men and women, and more besides. Lyte (1576) was translating, I think with elaborations, from the chapter on Scolymos cinara, Artichaut, in Dodoen's Croydeboeck (1552) as L'Ecluse's French translation, Dodoens Histoire des Plantes (1575) does not mention these latter uses, but Dodoen's own Latin translation, the Pemptades (1583), and Gerard's Herbal (1633) both do so. It is useful in understanding the history of these translations to realise that Gerard uses, almost verbatim, the translation of the 'smelly armpit' paragraph from Lyte. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Cynara cardunculus L. Asteraceae. Cardoon, Globe Artichoke, Artechokes, Scolymos cinara, Cynara, Cinara. Distribution: Southern Europe and North Africa. Lyte (1576) writes that Dodoens (1552) could find no medical use for them and Galen (c.200 AD) said they were indigestible unless cooked. However he relates that other authors recommend that if the flower heads are soaked in strong wine, they 'provoke urine and stir up lust in the body.' More prosaically, the roots boiled in wine and drunk it cause the urine to be 'stinking' and so cures smelly armpits. He adds that it strengthens the stomach so causing women to conceive Male children. He goes on to say that the young shoots boiled in broth also stir up lust in men and women, and more besides. Lyte (1576) was translating, I think with elaborations, from the chapter on Scolymos cinara, Artichaut, in Dodoen's Croydeboeck (1552) as L'Ecluse's French translation (1575) does not mention these latter uses, but Dodoen's own Latin translation, the Pemptades(1583), and Gerard's (1633) both do so. It is useful in understanding the history of these translations to realise that Gerard uses, almost verbatim, the translation of the 'smelly armpit' paragraph from Lyte. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Asphodeline lutea Rchb. Yellow asphodel, King's spear, Hastula regia. Hardy rhizomatous perennial. Distribution Mediterranean and Caucasus. It is the flower of the dead, as Homer writes that it carpets an area in the gloomy darkness of the underworld (Hades), in Greek mythology where the souls of the dead are found. However this may be a misinterpretation of the Greek where 'Asphodel' has been read instead of 'ash-filled'. In the etymology of flower names, it is suggested that the yellow 'daffodil' is a corruption of French or Flemish 'de asphodel' (both ex Steve Reece, 2007). An Aristotelian epigram, refers to it growing on tombs: 'On my back I hold mallow and many-rooted asphodel ...' The asphodel was sacred to Persephone, goddess of the underworld, who was seized and wed by Hades, god of the underworld, and taken to his kingdom. Her disappearance brings the winter, and her reappearance each year, the spring. The only reliable source of information about its early medical uses is, probably, Dioscorides although the plant in his De Materia Medica may be A. ramosus or A. albus. He gives its properties as diuretic, induces menses, good for coughs and convulsions, an antidote to snake bite, applied as a poultice for sores of all sorts, and in compounds for eye, ear and tooth pains, and to cure alopecia and vitiligo, but induces diarrhoea and vomiting and is an anti-aphrodisiac. Fuchs (1542), as Ruel’s commentaries (1543) note, makes a big mistake as he has Lilium martagon as his concept of A. luteus. Ruel only illustrates its leaves and roots, calling it Hastula regia (Latin for King’s spear) but Matthiolus's Commentaries (1569 edition) has a reasonable woodcut also as Hastula regia (1569). Dodoen's Cruydeboeck (1556) does not mention or illustrate Asphodelus luteus. L'Escluse's French translation Histoire des Plantes (1557) follows the Cruydeboeck. Dodoen's Latin translation Stirpium Historia Pemptades Sex (1583) adds A. luteus with text and woodcut, with no uses. Henry Lyte's (1578) translation illustrates Asphodelus luteus as Asphodeli tertia species and 'Yellow affodyl' (vide etymology of 'daffodil') and also does not describe any uses for it. Gerard's translation The Herbal (1597 and 1633) continues the muddle and does not give any uses for this plant. Parkinson's comments (1640) on the lack of medicinal properties of asphodels, refer to quite different plants coming from wet areas in Lancashire, Scotland and Norway . He calls them pseudoasphodelus major and minor which he writes are called Asphodelus luteus palustris by Dodoens, and not 'King's Spear' which he illustrates with a good woodcut of A. luteus and calls it Asphodelus luteus minor. Once herbals started to be written in northern Europe, the knowledge of the arid loving, Asphodelus luteus of south east Europe was lost. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • A doctor who writes books of sexual advice talking to his cynical publisher. Coloured lithograph, 1852.
  • A French hospital for wounded soldiers, World War I: three nurses attempting to read thermometers as a fourth writes down the results. Colour lithograph after L. Ibels, 1916.
  • A family doctor, an obstetrician, a sensationalist author-doctor and a hypnotist; all pruriently satirised under the guise of moralism, as promoted by James Morison and his pharmaceutical company. Lithograph, 1852.
  • A family doctor, an obstetrician, a sensationalist author-doctor and a hypnotist; all pruriently satirised under the guise of moralism, as promoted by James Morison and his pharmaceutical company. Lithograph, 1852.
  • A physician examining a urine specimen and taking the pulse of a sick woman. Engraving by W. French after C. Netscher.
  • A French hospital for wounded soldiers, World War I: patients engaged in reading, writing, playing cards, etc. Coloured lithograph after L. Ibels, 1916.
  • A French hospital for wounded soldiers, World War I: patients taking afternoon tea, and a nurse waiting to collect a letter from a slow writer. Colour lithograph after L. Ibels, 1916.
  • Writing up patient notes: confidentiality rights for tuberculosis patients in Kenya. Colour lithograph by KAPTLD, 2009.
  • Sir Morell Mackenzie. Coloured wood engraving by C. Housman, 1888.
  • Sir Morell Mackenzie. Coloured wood engraving by C. Housman, 1888.
  • Bynin Emulsion : an emulsion of cod-liver oil in Bynin, liquid malt, with hypophosphites : a nerve food and restorative, easy of assimilation ... a concentrated nutrient ... January 1909 ... / Allen & Hanburys Ltd.
  • Bynin Emulsion : an emulsion of cod liver oil in Bynin liquid malt, with hypophosphites : a nerve food and restorative, easy of assimilation, a concentrated nutrient ... October 1906 ... / Allen & Hanburys Ltd.
  • 'Bynin' Emulsion : an emulsion of cod-liver oil in Bynin, liquid malt, with hypophosphites : a nerve food and restorative, easy of assimilation ... a concentrated nutrient ... January 1910 ... / Allen & Hanburys Ltd.
  • 15th century Chinese scholar-physician, Japanese woodcut
  • Veronicastrum virginicum 'Pink Glow'
  • Veronicastrum virginicum 'Pink Glow'
  • Birkbeck, T. B.
  • Anthyllis vulneraria L. Fabaceae. Kidney vetch, woundwort. 'vulneraria' means 'wound healer'
  • The history of paediatrics : the progress of the study of diseases of children up to the end of the XVIIIth century / by George Frederic Still.
  • The history of paediatrics : the progress of the study of diseases of children up to the end of the XVIIIth century / by George Frederic Still.
  • The history of paediatrics : the progress of the study of diseases of children up to the end of the XVIIIth century / by George Frederic Still.
  • Studies in the palaeopathology of Egypt / by Sir Marc Armand Ruffer ... edited by Roy L. Moodie.
  • Studies in the palaeopathology of Egypt / by Sir Marc Armand Ruffer ... edited by Roy L. Moodie.
  • Studies in the palaeopathology of Egypt / by Sir Marc Armand Ruffer ... edited by Roy L. Moodie.