Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
525 results
  • Illustration to show the use of the microscope in medicine, (Campani's microscopes).
  • A medicine show; a moustachioed charlatan holds up a phial, a miserable patient sits in the carriage and a black man in uniform bangs the drums. Coloured lithograph by G. Frison.
  • Outline of Harrogate, showing sites of some medicinal springs
  • School of Medicine, Paris: interior view showing doctors attending a lecture in the amphitheatre. Coloured lithograph by G. Doré.
  • School of Medicine, Paris: interior view showing doctors attending a lecture in the amphitheatre. Coloured lithograph by G. Doré.
  • Plan of Wellcome museum galleries: 3rd floor showing new arrangement, 1942, Dr Daukes scheme: cosmogony, evolution, prehistory, primitive medicine, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, library etc...
  • Anatomy of a dog: nine figures, showing the skeletons and skulls of different breeds of dog and including demonstrations of the administering of medicine. Lithograph, 1860/1900?.
  • Zuni medicine man, New Mexico: reclining on a blanket wearing only a loin cloth, showing his back and his face in profile. Photograph by Edward S. Curtis.
  • School of Medicine, Paris: a mural in the amphitheatre showing fifty-six prominent medical men in a neo-classical setting. Lithograph by N. Legrand, 1908, after U. Bourgeois, 1895.
  • Public exposure, analysis, etc., of advertised remedies : patent medicines and foods showing their estimated costs, analytical contents, and various claims / copyright by the Advertised Remedies Exposure Campaign ... organiser- Wm. T. Davison.
  • The magnetic and botanic family physician, and domestic practice of natural medicine : with illustrations showing various phases of mesmeric treatment, including full and concise instruction in mesmerism, curative magnetism, massage, and medical botany / by D. Younger.
  • The magnetic and botanic family physician, and domestic practice of natural medicine : with illustrations showing various phases of mesmeric treatment, including full and concise instruction in mesmerism, curative magnetism, massage, and medical botany / by D. Younger.
  • The magnetic and botanic family physician, and domestic practice of natural medicine : with illustrations showing various phases of mesmeric treatment, including full and concise instruction in mesmerism, curative magnetism, massage, and medical botany / by D. Younger.
  • The magnetic and botanic family physician, and domestic practice of natural medicine : with illustrations showing various phases of mesmeric treatment, including full and concise instruction in mesmerism, curative magnetism, massage, and medical botany / by D. Younger.
  • The magnetic and botanic family physician, and domestic practice of natural medicine : with illustrations showing various phases of mesmeric treatment, including full and concise instruction in mesmerism, curative magnetism, massage, and medical botany / by D. Younger.
  • The magnetic and botanic family physician, and domestic practice of natural medicine : with illustrations showing various phases of mesmeric treatment, including full and concise instruction in mesmerism, curative magnetism, massage, and medical botany / by D. Younger.
  • The magnetic and botanic family physician, and domestic practice of natural medicine : with illustrations showing various phases of mesmeric treatment, including full and concise instruction in mesmerism, curative magnetism, massage, and medical botany / by D. Younger.
  • The magnetic and botanic family physician, and domestic practice of natural medicine : with illustrations showing various phases of mesmeric treatment, including full and concise instruction in mesmerism, curative magnetism, massage, and medical botany / by D. Younger.
  • The magnetic and botanic family physician, and domestic practice of natural medicine : with illustrations showing various phases of mesmeric treatment, including full and concise instruction in mesmerism, curative magnetism, massage, and medical botany / by D. Younger.
  • Acanthus spinosus L. Acanthaceae. Bears breeches. Distribution: Southern Europe to Western Turkey. Herbaceous perennial flowering plant. Named for spiny leaves. Dioscorides recommended the roots applied for inflammation and spasms, and -when drunk- to promote urine, check diarrhoea, and for phthysis, ruptures and convulsions. The leaves are the model for those at the top of Corinthian columns. Tetraglycosides isolated from the plant show cytotoxicity in sea urchin eggs and crown gall tumour on potato disks. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Cichorium intybus L., Asteraceae. Chicory, succory. Distribution: Uses: 'Cichory, (or Succory as the vulgar call it) cools and strengthens the liver: so doth Endive' (Culpeper, 1650). The Cichorium sylvestre, Wilde Succorie, of Gerard (1633) and the leaves cooked into a soup for ill people. Linnaeus (1782) reported it was used for Melancholia, Hypochondria, Hectica [fever], haemorrhage and gout. Root contains 20% inulin, a sweetening agent. Dried, roasted and ground up the roots are used as a coffee substitute, best known as Camp coffee (Chicory and Coffee essence). This used to be sold in tall square section bottle with a label showing a circa 1885 army tent with a Sikh soldier standing and serving coffee to a seated officer from the Gordon Highlanders. The bottle on the label has now moved on, and since 2006 it shows the same tent but the Sikh and the Scot are now both seated, drinking Camp coffee together. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Solanum laciniatum Aiton Solanaceae. Kangaroo Apple. Evergreen shrub. Distribution: New Zealand and the east coast of Australia. It contains steroidal saponins that can be converted into steroids, including progesterone, oestrogens, cortisone, prednisolone etc. In 1943, Professor Russell Marker discovered a method of obtaining an unsaturated steroidal saponine, diosogenin, from Mexican yam (Dioscorea mexicana), which can easily and cheaply be converted into steroids, such as prednisone and progesterone, reducing the price of steroid production to a fraction (0.5%) of its former cost. For 20 years drug companies showed little interest, and it was only as a result of Professor Marker forming his own company, and the concerted efforts of several gynaecologists, physiologists and birth-control advocates, that the contraceptive pill was ‘born’ in 1960. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Succisia pratensis Greene Asteraceae. Devil’s Bit Scabious, Blue Buttons. Distribution: Europe, W Asia, Africa. Culpeper (1650), under ‘Herbs’ he writes: ‘Succisa, Morsus diobolo, Devil’s Bit. Inwardly taken it easeth the fits of the mother [probably uterine spasm or pain], and breaks wind, taketh away the swellings in the mouth, and slimy phlegm that sticks to the jaws, neither is there a more present remedy in the world, for those cold swellings of the neck, which the vulgar call the Almonds [lymph nodes] of the neck than this herb bruised and applied to them. Folk lore attribute it as a cure-all which was so successful that the Devil bit off the bottom of the roots when he saw it growing down into Hades. However, the roots show no sign of such damage to support the myth. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Eranthis hyemalis Salisb. Ranunculaceae Winter Aconite Distribution: Europe. The reason it was called Winter aconite and linked to Aconitum napellus as being just as poisonous is because plants were classified according to leaf shape in the 16th century. L'Obel's Stirpium adversaria nova (1571) and Plantarum seu stirpium historia (1576) (with a full page illustration on page 384 showing Eranthis and Aconitum together) along with the knowledge that related plants have similar medical properties caused the belief that Eranthis are as poisonous as Aconitum. They are both in Ranunculaceae and while Eranthis (like all Ranunculaceae)is toxic if eaten, it does not contain the same chemicals as Aconitum. Caesalpino (Ekphrasis, 1616) pointed out the error in classifying according to leaf shape and recommended flower shape. It contains pharmacologically interesting chemicals such as khellin, also present in Ammi visnaga. This is a vasodilator but quite toxic, but can be converted into khellin analogues such as sodium cromoglicate – used as a prophylaxis against asthma attacks – and amiodarone which has anti-arrhythmia actions so is used for atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias. It is endangered and protected in the wild (Croatia) because of over-collecting for horticulture. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Eranthis hyemalis Salisb. Ranunculaceae Winter Aconite Distribution: Europe. The reason it was called Winter aconite and linked to Aconitum napellus as being just as poisonous is because plants were classified according to leaf shape in the 16th century. L'Obel's 'Stirpium adversaria nova' published in 1571 and 'Plantarum seu stirpium historia' published 1576 (with a full page illustration on page 384 showing Eranthis and Aconitum together) along with the knowledge that related plants have similar medical properties caused the belief that Eranthis are as poisonous as Aconitum. They are both in Ranunculaceae and while Eranthis (like all Ranunculaceae) is toxic if eaten, it does not contain the same chemicals as Aconitum. Caesalpino (Ekphrasis, 1616) pointed out the error in classifying according to leaf shape and recommended flower shape. It contains pharmacologically interesting chemicals such as khellin, also present in Ammi visnaga. This is a vasodilator but quite toxic, which can be converted into khellin analogues such as sodium cromoglicate – used as a prophylaxis against asthma attacks – and amiodarone which has anti-arrhythmia actions so is used for atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias. It is endangered and protected in the wild (Croatia) because of over-collecting for horticulture. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Crowds of people are gathered for a fete, a stage has been set up and actors are performing a play. Engraving by F. Dequevauviller, 1777, after M. Schoevaerdts.
  • Crowds of people are gathered for a fete, a stage has been set up and actors are performing a play. Engraving by F. Dequevauviller, 1777, after M. Schoevaerdts.
  • A company of itinerant tooth-drawers performing on a stage. Oil painting by a French (?) painter, ca. 1860 (?).
  • A company of itinerant tooth-drawers performing on a stage. Oil painting by a French (?) painter, ca. 1860 (?).
  • Itinerant medicine vendors in Rome. Oil painting attributed to Dirk Helmbreker.