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88 results
  • Article
  • Article

Close encounters of the spiritualist kind

| Kate WilkinsonThomas S G Farnetti

When it comes to practical and emotional advice, Daphne heeds the words of her lost loved ones. Find out how a spiritualist medium helps her stay in touch.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Tracing the roots of our fears and fixations

| Kate SummerscaleTim Robinson

Kate Summerscale explores the history of our anxieties and compulsions, and the new phobias and manias that are always emerging.

  • Article
  • Article

Cloves to mull, mask and numb

| Helen Babbs

Sweet, pungent, warm, woody: cloves smell and taste like Christmas. But there’s much more to this spice than that.

  • Article
  • Article

Sigrid Rausing’s prescription for writing

| Jennifer Trent Staves

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘Stay With Me’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Dark Matter responds to ‘Epidemic threats and racist legacies’

| Dark Matter

Animated-collage artist Dark Matter brings his unique combination of live footage and archive imagery to respond to a text suggesting that the field of epidemiology emerged in the 19th century imbued with the doctrine of Western imperialism.

  • Article
  • Article

Eugenics and the welfare state

| Indy BhullarGergo Varga

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.

  • Article
  • Article

A brief history of ventilation

| Dr Lindsey FitzharrisSteven Pocock

As ventilators continue to play an important part in helping very ill coronavirus patients, medical historian Dr Lindsey Fitzharris traces their development from the first attempts at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation through centuries of medical crises.

  • Article
  • Article

Hands-on healthcare

| Ella Nørgaard MortonThomas S G Farnetti

A young hospital volunteer feared her contribution was a long way from the serious business of real healthcare. But time spent painting patients’ nails proved to be a valuable contribution to life on the ward.

  • Article
  • Article

Dealing with the dead after a nuclear attack

| Taras Young

Cold War-era predictions of death on a vast scale became routine. But the British authorities were less prepared to dispose of the bodies.

  • Article
  • Article

The hidden history of homesickness

| Gail TolleyMaria Rivans

Gail Tolley delves into the history of homesickness and discovers that its rich past holds a clue to how we view the experience today.

  • Article
  • Article

‘Jessy’, a film about cerebral palsy

| Anthony McKay

How the 1950s British film industry portrayed this disease.

  • Article
  • Article

John Walter on ‘Alien Sex Club’

| John Walter

I’m a painter, but I make worlds.

  • Article
  • Article

Yoga adapts to time and place

| Lalita Kaplish

A yoga teacher in 1930s India inspired today’s transnational practice with his spectacular fusion of tradition and innovation.

  • Article
  • Article

Believe yourself better

| A R Hopwood

There’s more to recovery than medication. In future, our unconscious minds could be recruited to put a positive spin on our health problems, helping us feel better faster.

  • Article
  • Article

The birth of Britain's National Health Service

| Cal Flyn

Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.

  • Article
  • Article

Giving shape to sound

| Jamie HaleSamuel DoreKirsten IrvingThomas S G Farnetti

Fascinated by language and how music feels, Deaf rapper Signkid creates tracks that give shape to sound. He discusses inspiration, access and performing for all audiences, D/deaf and hearing alike.

  • 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.

  • Article
  • Article

The girl with no name

| Paul Craddock

When a now anonymous teenager sold her tooth for transplant, she couldn’t have predicted that she’d end up at the heart of a troubling story about 18th-century beauty ideals.

  • Article
  • Article

Losing touch

| Agnese ReginaldoAisha Young

In these pandemic times, when touch has become taboo, Agnese Reginaldo explores the importance of physical contact to our wellbeing.

  • Article
  • Article

Ancestry, privacy and the family tree

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

Wanting to find out more about her Jamaican grandfather, Tanya Perdikou contemplates DNA testing. But first she has to consider the potential impact of unexpected results.

  • Article
  • Article

Womb milk and the puzzle of the placenta

| Joanna Wolfarth

A human baby needs milk to survive – and this holds true even before it’s born. Joanna Wolfarth explores “womb milk”, as well as ancient and modern ideas about the placenta.

  • Article
  • Article

The life and death of Tamagotchi and the virtual pet

| Jenna Jovi

Discover how the 1990s craze for Tamagotchis became a flood of robotic and virtual pets, sending their owners on an emotional rollercoaster ride.

  • Article
  • Article

The Martians are coming

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

For over a hundred years, antagonistic alien invaders have been a popular focus for the imagined end of the world. But the destructive consequences of human behaviour is far more frightening.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

My important, ridiculous nose

| A L Kennedy

The nose is a much-maligned appendage, but it’s a powerful organ capable of invoking powerful emotions from past memories and sexual attraction.

  • Article
  • Article

How slums make people sick

| Emily Sargent

A newly gentrified corner of Bermondsey leaves little clue to its less salubrious history. But a few intrepid writers recorded the details of existence in one of London’s most squalid slums.