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  • Article
  • Article

The work of wet-nursing

| Alev ScottVicky Scott

Many of us know that in the past, babies were sometimes nourished by wet-nurses. But, perhaps surprisingly, the practice continues today – and the milk recipients are not only babies.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Primodos, paternalism and the fight to be heard

| Florence WildbloodKathleen Arundell

Journalist Florence Wildblood examines the case of Primodos – a conveniently quick but risky hormone pregnancy test that was prescribed in the 1960s and ’70s – and profiles two women at the story’s shocking heart.

  • Article
  • Article

Desperate housewives and suburban neurosis

| Giulia Smith

Discover how a pioneering health centre replaced housewives’ supposedly empty home lives with a social space that encouraged healthy child rearing.

  • Interview
  • Interview

How to design an HIV awareness campaign

| Paul Steinberg

Using carefully crafted, colourful graphics is one public health team’s creative approach.

  • Article
  • Article

Is it really OK to not be OK?

| James DownsMafalda Rakoš

Our mental healthcare system is still the poor relation of services that treat physical illness, and the pandemic has shone a spotlight on this situation. Campaigner James Downs argues for fundamental change.

  • Article
  • Article

Yoga gets physical

| Lalita Kaplish

Modern yoga owes a debt to the physical culture movement that created a world obsessed with health and fitness.

  • Article
  • Article

Trust me, I’m a patient

| Rachel Rowan OliveCamilla Greenwell

Artist Rachel Rowan Olive is an expert in the way her mental health condition affects her. Here she explains how it helps if doctors understand that.

  • Article
  • Article

A story of death, trauma and austerity

| Marienna Pope-Weidemann

Marienna Pope-Weidemann, whose teenage cousin Gaia died after going missing, advocates a rethink of our systems, which currently fail many in mental distress.

  • Article
  • Article

Writing in remission

| Brian DillonNaki Narh

Reading the writings of the lifelong hypochondriac Jacques Derrida during lockdown, Brian Dillon realises his own health anxiety has become unusually subdued.

  • Article
  • Article

Dirt, disease and the Inspector of Nuisances

| Kristen den Hartog

In the days when ‘bad air’ was thought to spread disease, dozens of Inspectors of Nuisances ceaselessly struggled against the perils of dirt – both visible and invisible.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

“Above resistant pavements, I floated”

| Iain Sinclair

In this extract from ‘Living with Buildings and Walking with Ghosts’, walk with Iain Sinclair through the streets of London.

  • Article
  • Article

The housing that gives hope to refugees

| George KafkaMamadou

A safe place of one’s own can be a source of healing and hope. George Kafka reports on two Athens-based projects helping displaced people by putting housing first.

  • Article
  • Article

Providing care across languages

| Niyoshi ShahRanganath Krishnamani

When medics are taught in English but their patients speak other languages, effective communication becomes fraught. Niyoshi Shah explores the linguistic gaps between patient and doctor.

  • Article
  • Article

Bleeding healthy

| Julia Nurse

For thousands of years, and in many different cultures, people have practised bloodletting for health and medical reasons. Julia Nurse explains where and when bleeding was used, how it was done, and why.

  • Article
  • Article

Self-obsessing in the age of selfies

| Stevyn Colgan

The tiny, joyful spark of a social media ‘like’ can lead to a damaging obsession. Find out how far people will go when their phone addiction gets the upper hand.

  • Article
  • Article

The gym of cartoon men

| Andrew McMillanBenjamin Gilbert

In men, body dysmorphia can be expressed as ‘bigorexia’ – the belief that your body is too weak and thin – or anorexia. Andrew McMillan explores two sides of the same coin.

  • Article
  • Article

The pill, autism and me

| Catriona ReidNatasha Almeida

Realising that her contraceptive was having a negative effect on her mental health, Catriona Reid saw her concerns dismissed by doctors. As an autistic woman on the pill, she was not an anomaly, but has often been made to feel like one.

  • Article
  • Article

Milk trails round Euston

| Esther LesliePeople’s MuseumBenjamin Gilbert

Where cows once grazed near Wellcome Collection in London, baristas now froth their milk. Esther Leslie uncovers Euston’s dairy-based urban history.

  • Article
  • Article

Rose Mackenberg’s deceptive activism

| A R Hopwood

Discover how a New York private investigator became part of Houdini’s mission to expose the fraudulent mediums making money from their vulnerable, grieving clients.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life

| Aarathi Prasad

The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.

  • Article
  • Article

The ancient doctors who refused payment

| Christopher DeCouSteven Pocock

The NHS might only be 70 years old, but the idea of free healthcare goes back to Ancient Greece, when devout doctors provided their services without charge.

  • Article
  • Article

Drug sharing in desperate times

| NicoleThomas S G Farnetti

When Nicole was threatened with deportation, her mental health deteriorated. Now without a job, a passport or a doctor, she depends on others to send her their leftover anxiety drugs.

  • Article
  • Article

The bishop’s profitable sex workers

| Dr Kate Lister

How did the Church rake in revenue from 14th-century sex regulations? Kate Lister explores a bishop’s lucrative rulebook.

  • Article
  • Article

The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria

| Natasha Ruiz-GómezKathleen Arundell

A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.

  • Article
  • Article

Medics, migration and the NHS

| Cal Flyn

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.