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  • Whoever you take out take me too! / Coventry Youth Action, HIV awareness for young people, part of the HIV Network ; designed by L. Sheen.
  • Whoever you take out take me too! / Coventry Youth Action, HIV awareness for young people, part of the HIV Network ; designed by L. Sheen.
  • An exhausted nurse who has been looking after her patient for many hours asks when she may go to bed, the patient's mother retorts that she thought she was a trained nurse. Wood engraving by L. Raven-Hill.
  • A woman, head and shoulders; she has a bump on her right shoulder. Photograph by L. Haase after H.W. Berend, 1864.
  • A woman, head and shoulders; she has a bump on her right shoulder. Photograph by L. Haase after H.W. Berend, 1864.
  • Two young children comfort their mother as she mourns at the tomb of her dead husband. Engraving by F. Bacon after Miss L. Sharpe.
  • A convalescing old lady asking her health visitor if she has recovered from her bout of flu. Wood engraving by L. Raven-Hill, 1912.
  • Two young children comfort their mother as she mourns at the tomb of her dead husband. Engraving by F. Bacon after Miss L. Sharpe.
  • A young woman, sitting; she has a mark on the middle of her right arm. Photograph by L. Haase after H.W. Berend, 1864.
  • A woman, viewed from behind with open dress revealing back; she is holding her arms up. Photograph by L. Haase after H.W. Berend, 1863.
  • A woman standing, viewed from the front, her shoulders and arms are unclothed and she has misshapen fingers. Photograph by L. Haase after H.W. Berend, 1862.
  • An episode in Tristram Shandy: Uncle Toby looks into Widow Wadman's eye, as she holds it open for him. Line engraving by L. Stocks(?) after C.R. Leslie, 1831.
  • An unsympathetic doctor giving a patient a prescription, telling her it doesn't matter whether she takes it or not. Reproduction of a drawing by G.L. Stampa, 1931.
  • A woman standing: a full length view from the front, in which she reveals her legs by raising her dress. Photograph by L. Haase after H.W. Berend, 1859.
  • A woman standing: a full length view from the front, in which she reveals her legs by raising her dress. Photograph by L. Haase after H.W. Berend, 1859.
  • A female milk seller is offering two children milk from the metal pails she has unyoked and rested on the ground. Colour process print after L. Schiavonetti after F. Wheatley.
  • A woman, seated, wearing a black dress and veil; her hands are in her lap as though she is praying. Photograph by L. Haase after H.W. Berend, c. 1865.
  • A woman seated; she is partially clothed with her arms extended and the left side of her face appears slightly deformed. Photograph by L. Haase for H.W. Berend, c. 1865.
  • A young woman of humble origins, surrounded by children, is being told by a fortune teller that she will have a happy marriage. Lithograph by C. Constans after L. Boilly, 1824.
  • A mirror image of a woman wearing an open-necked shirt and beaded necklace with a heart pendant; with a message in Italian about how she is not always faithful in her [sexual] fantasies but she is in real life; one of a series of safe sex posters from a 'Stop AIDS' by the Federal Office of Public Health, in collaboration with l'Aide Suisse contre le SIDA. Colour lithograph.
  • A mirror image of a woman with short bobbed hair and a smart jacket with a message in French about how she is always faithful to the condom but was not to her last boyfriend; one of a series of safe sex posters from a 'Stop AIDS' by the Federal Office of Public Health, in collaboration with l'Aide Suisse contre le SIDA. Colour lithograph.
  • 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.
  • Veratrum nigrum L. Melanthiaceae Distribution: Europe. Cows do not eat Veratrum species in the meadows, and human poisoning with it caused vomiting and fainting. In the 1850s it was found to reduce the heart's action and slow the pulse (Bentley, 1861, called it an 'arterial sedative'), and in 1859 it was used orally in a woman who was having convulsions due to eclampsia. Dr Paul DeLacy Baker in Alabama treated her with drops of a tincture of V. viride. She recovered. It was used thereafter, as the first choice of treatment, and, when blood pressure monitoring became possible, it was discovered that it worked by reducing the high blood pressure that occurs in eclampsia. By 1947 death rates were reduced from 30% to 5% by its use at the Boston Lying-in Hospital. It works by dilating the arteries in muscles and in the gastrointestinal circulation. A further use of Veratrum species came to light when it was noted that V. californicum - and other species - if eaten by sheep resulted in foetal malformations, in particular only having one eye. The chemical in the plant that was responsible, cyclopamine, was found to act on certain genetic pathways responsible for stem cell division in the regulation of the development of bilateral symmetry in the embryo/foetus. Synthetic analogues have been developed which act on what have come to be called the 'hedgehog signalling pathways' in stem cell division, and these 'Hedgehog inhibitors' are being introduced into medicine for the treatment of various cancers like chondrosarcoma, myelofibrosis, and advanced basal cell carcinoma. The drugs are saridegib, erismodegib and vismodegib. All the early herbals report on its ability to cause vomiting. As a herbal medicine it is Prescription Only, via a registered dentist or physician (UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Veratrum album L. Melanthiaceae Distribution: Europe. Cows do not eat Veratrum species in the meadows, and human poisoning with it caused vomiting and fainting. In the 1850s it was found to reduce the heart's action and slow the pulse (Bentley, 1861, called it an 'arterial sedative'), and in 1859 it was used orally in a woman who was having convulsions due to eclampsia. Dr Paul DeLacy Baker in Alabama treated her with drops of a tincture of V. viride. She recovered. It was used thereafter, as the first choice of treatment, and when blood pressure monitoring became possible, it was discovered that it worked by reducing the high blood pressure that occurs in eclampsia. By 1947 death rates were reduced from 30% to 5% by its use at the Boston Lying in Hospital. It works by dilating the arteries in muscles and in the gastrointestinal circulation. A further use of Veratrum species came to light when it was noted that V. californicum -and other species - if eaten by sheep resulted in foetal malformations, in particular only having one eye. The chemical in the plant that was responsible, cyclopamine, was found to act on certain genetic pathways responsible for stem cell division in the regulation of the development of bilateral symmetry in the embryo/foetus. Synthetic analogues have been developed which act on what have come to be called the 'hedgehog signalling pathways' in stem cell division, and these 'Hedgehog inhibitors' are being introduced into medicine for the treatment of various cancers like chondrosarcoma, myelofibrosis, and advanced basal cell carcinoma. The drugs are saridegib, erismodegib and vismodegib. All the early herbals report on its ability to cause vomiting. As a herbal medicine it is Prescription Only, via a registered dentist or physician (UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • C14 Chinese tongue diagnosis chart
  • C14 Chinese tongue diagnosis chart
  • A prostitute with her name and charges. Etching by a follower of Wenceslaus Hollar, 180- (?).
  • Cartoon advert for 'Lux' washing powder
  • A "Hottentot" woman with large labia pudendi. Coloured engraving by J. Pass.