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- Article
- Article
Vivekananda’s journey
How a young Indian monk’s travels around the world inspired modern yoga.
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- Article
- Article
Acid and the sexual psychonauts
How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.
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- Article
- Article
Words of hope and anger
Author and spoken word poet Penny Pepper remembers her childhood dreams, and speaks out against the barriers society uses to prevent disabled people from fulfilling their potential.
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- Book extract
- Book extract
Healing hearts and saving lives
Cardiology is a prestigious specialism, known for its life-saving, heroic staff. But a doctor’s training eventually reveals other, less obvious ways to save lives.
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- Article
- Article
Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination
The Black Death, AIDS and Ebola outbreaks are part of our collective cultural memory, but the Spanish flu outbreak has not been.
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- Article
- Article
The origins and meanings of pharmacy symbols
What have snakes, unicorns and crocodiles got to do with pharmacies? The history of these modern signs goes back to the Greek gods.
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- Article
- Article
Lovesickness and ‘The Love Thief’
An 11th-century poem of love, lust and possibly gruesome death still resonates today.
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- Article
- Article
Intelligence testing, race and eugenics
Specious ideas and assumptions about intelligence that were born during the great flourishing of eugenics well over 100 years ago still inform the British education system today, as Nazlin Bhimani reveals.
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- Article
- Article
Ginger’s role in cures and courtroom battles
Some people will use a dose of ginger to help with hangovers – but it hasn’t always been a friend to the thirsty.
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- Book extract
- Book extract
Renaissance women and their killer cosmetics
In this extract from ‘How to be a Renaissance Woman’, Jill Burke delves into a complex world of beauty products, poison and patriarchy – and reveals the impossible contradictions of femininity faced by 16th-century women.
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- Long read
- Long read
Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction
Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.
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- Article
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The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria
A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.
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- Article
- Article
Parasites and pests from the medieval to the modern
Humans have been reluctant hosts to a plethora of unpleasant parasites for centuries. And medieval evidence shows our modern distaste for these little irritations is just as ancient.
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- Article
Indian botanicals and heritage wars
Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.
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- Article
- Article
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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- Article
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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.
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- Article
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Fake news and the flu
Discover how history shows that fake news could play a deadly role – by generating potentially lethal misinformation during a future pandemic.
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- Article
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Doctors and the English seaside
Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.
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- Article
- Article
Maladaptive daydreaming, gender myths and me
Can you daydream too much? Excessive daydreamer Laura Grace Simpkins reflects on studies into “maladaptive daydreaming” and asks why so few fellow dreamers seem to be men.
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- Article
- Article
Exceptional talent and the trouble with IQ tests
Is a high IQ really a mark of genius, or does something else explain the exceptional?
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- Book extract
- Book extract
Of incubators, orchids and artificial wombs
In this extract from Claire Horn’s new book, ‘Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth’, she traces the development of the artificial womb, soon to become a reality.
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- Article
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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.
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Female masturbation and the perils of pleasure
Dr Kate Lister exposes the brutal 19th-century ‘cures’ for women who indulged in masturbation.
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Illness and the influence of the stars
Could alien germs from space have caused major pandemics across the world? Taras Young investigates the ideas of a few unconventional scientists who believe this to be the case.
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Shame and the online free-for-all
Lucia Osborne-Crowley looks at how shame manifests online, where public humiliation is common and second chances all too rare.