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Surviving sex work on the streets
In care at four, on the streets at nine, Charmaine has had a traumatic journey to reach life as it is now: no drugs, no sex work, looking after her mum, and enjoying her grandchildren. Here she writes honestly about her past.
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Disability in the post-pandemic world
Disabled people have suffered more than most during Covid-19, but there is still a chance to build a kinder society. Dolly Sen explores whether we will come together, or allow more brutal disparities to develop in the worsening recession.
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Life lessons across the digital divide
What could 86-year-old Tony teach 20-something Adele as she showed him how to use his smartphone? Rather a lot about digital exclusion, it turns out.
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Thousands of years of women’s pain
Even in the 21st century, women with severe monthly pain find their suffering minimised or dismissed by the medical profession. Such pain is seen as simply a natural part of being female.
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The tradesman who confronted the pestilence
The City of London, 1665. As the Great Plague hits the capital, John New faces a deadly dilemma.
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“People see the disability but forget the ability”
I’m a disabled Asian woman, and mother of four. I’m trying to show people that we have to talk about disability if we want things to change.
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The doctor who challenged the unicorn myth
Our era of fake news and medical misinformation is nothing new. Estelle Paranque relays the thrusts and parries of a 440-year-old row over a magical cure-all, the unicorn horn.
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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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Diagnosing the past
Historical texts rarely supply enough detail for a definitive diagnosis, so medical historians need to proceed with caution.
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The ‘undesirable epileptic’
Abused in her marriage for being 'a sick woman', Aparna Nair looked to history to make sense of the response to her epilepsy. She discovered how centuries of fear and discrimination were often endorsed by science and legislation.
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Life on the line
Former Samaritans helpline volunteer Katy Georgiou recalls the desperate voices she heard during her night shifts, and those whose isolation she helped to alleviate.
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London, city of lost hospitals
Come on the trail of hundreds of ghost hospitals, whose remnants hold clues to medical treatments of the past.
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Questioning the psychoanalyst
Maggie Robbins gives her personal take on the common misconceptions around her field of work.
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The conditional child
Deanna Fei asks what it means to sustain a life, drawing on her own experience of having a premature baby as well as an 18th-century essay.
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Documents of my breath
Swati Joshi’s childhood bronchitis meant that she couldn’t imagine being able to breathe easily. As an adult, she chronicles her recovery through artworks created using bubbles and her breath.
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Uncovering experiences of dementia
Focusing on three 19th-century women’s case notes, Millie van der Byl Williams explores how our definition of dementia has changed.
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The empty bungalow
Grandma’s unsteady piles of stuff have been dismantled and dispersed. From an empty bungalow, Georgie Evans makes a plea for hoarding behaviour to be better understood.
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A history of mindfulness
Matt Drage questions how an ancient religious practice became a secular cure for stress.
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A virtual view of history
Step inside Anne Frank’s house or explore the galleries in a museum destroyed by fire. VR brings history and art satisfyingly close when we’re unable to get there in person.
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The epilepsy diagnosis
Epilepsy exists between the mind and body, something that Aparna Nair experienced for herself when she was diagnosed as a teenager.
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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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- Book extract
You know the drill
Richard Barnett opens wide the true meaning of a healthy mouth.
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Why the world needs collectors
Those who collect play an important role as “facilitators of curiosity”, says Anna Faherty.
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My mother, and metaphors of a pandemic
A pandemic. Two members of one family, living thousands of miles apart. And months of calls and messages that helped them grow closer.
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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.