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Medics and the bomb
Would a nuclear attack on the UK overwhelm the NHS? At the height of the Cold War, despite government optimism, medics predicted doom.
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Medics, migration and the NHS
In the 1960s the NHS became Britain’s biggest employer. So to help fill all those jobs, the government brought in thousands of workers from abroad.
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The birth of Britain's National Health Service
Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.
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Guerrilla public health
From safe-use guides to needle exchange schemes, Harry Shapiro reflects on 40 years of drug harm reduction in the UK.
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Picturing mental health
Ron Hampshire created artworks while resident at Netherne psychiatric hospital. What can we learn from them?
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Between sickness and health
In early 2020, the subject Will Rees was studying – imaginary illnesses – took on a new relevance as everyone anxiously scanned themselves for Covid symptoms each day. But this kind of self-scrutiny is nothing new, as he reveals.
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Public health campaigns and the ‘threat’ of disability
By continuing to represent disability as the feared outcome of disease, public health campaigns help to perpetuate prejudice against disabled people.
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How the mental health system fails Black people
Accessing mental healthcare as a Black woman can be a challenging experience. Rianna Walcott shares her story, alongside those of three other women, to reveal the barriers she faced.
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Eugenics and the welfare state
Indy Bhullar explores the ideas of William Beveridge and Richard Titmuss, who were strongly influenced by eugenic thinking, and yet championed the idea of the welfare state.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The post-war adverts that tried to cure lonely women
Isolated housewives, lonely female office workers: while the 1950s saw the birth of a general concern about them, manufacturers also spotted an opportunity. Find out how advertising promised that products could salve solitude.
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The colonist who faced the blue terror
India, 1857. In a British enclave, Katherine Bartrum watches her friend, and then her family, succumb to the deadly cholera.
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Born in the NHS
Despite underfunding, strikes and scandals, the first two decades of the 2000s has seen the British people’s love of and loyalty to the NHS soar.
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Lying low for lockdown and beyond
For Liz Carr the chances of catching Covid-19 are the same as for anyone else, but as a Disabled person she's at much greater risk of not getting the treatment she needs if she falls ill.
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The indelible harm caused by conversion therapy
With first-hand evidence from two powerful testimonies, neurologist Jules Montague explores the destructive history of conversion therapy, a punitive treatment designed to ‘cure’ people of homosexuality.
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The enduring myth of the mad genius
There’s a fine line to tread between creativity and psychosis.
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The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists
Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.
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In search of the ‘nature cure’
Under the competing pressures of modern life, many of us succumb to mental ill health. Samantha Walton explores why so-called ‘nature cures’ don’t help, and how the living world can actually help us.
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Divining the world through an artist’s almanac
Amanda Couch's artists book, 'Huwawa in the Everyday: an almanac' is inspired by the entrail like folds of a medieval folding and its function as a guide for astrological divinations linking the body, health and the heavens. Like the original almanac her work is designed to be carried out into the wider world.
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Do good mothers make good democracy?
To be psychologically fit for democracy, one distinguished paediatrician argued that you need a ‘good enough mother’ – and that we must acknowledge the bad side of our feelings.
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Getting around the rules of sex education
What should we and shouldn’t we teach our teens about sex, inside and outside of the classroom?
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Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars
‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?
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A history of twins in science
For thousands of years, twins have been a source of fascination in mythology, religion and the arts. Since the 19th century, they have also been the subject of scientific study and experimentation.
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WhatsApp aunties and the spread of fake news
The advantages of WhatApp chat groups – especially as a cost-free way of keeping in touch with family around the world – make them fertile ground for the spread of bogus medical advice. Writer Rianna Walcott explores how to encourage ‘aunties’ in the community to question the truth of unattributed health hoaxes.
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How tuberculosis became a test case for eugenic theory
A 19th-century collaboration that failed to prove how facial features could indicate the diseases people were most likely to suffer from became a significant stepping stone in the new ‘science’ of eugenics.
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Pain and the power of activism
Today, women with endometriosis have more access to better information than ever before. Jaipreet Virdi applauds the shared stories, online communities and self-help books empowering women in pain.