Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
30 results
  • Article
  • Article

Charged bodies

| Ruth Garde

Electrified humans brought education and performance together with a spark in the 18th century.

  • Article
  • Article

The chymist’s trade card

| Julia Nurse

An 18th-century trade card reveals far more than its owner may have intended.

  • Article
  • Article

Doctors and the English seaside

| Jane Darcy

Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.

  • Article
  • Article

Printing the body

| Julia Nurse

The 18th century saw multiple technical developments in both printing and medicine. Colourful collaborations ensued – to the benefit of growing ranks of medical students.

  • Article
  • Article

Duelling doctors

| Russell Moul

An enduring enthusiasm for 18th-century gentlemen to defend their ‘honour’ by duelling placed doctors in a delicate position. Specially when they faced being shot themselves.

  • Article
  • Article

The current that kills

| Ruth Garde

In the 19th century, electricity held life in the balance, with the power to execute – or reanimate.

  • Article
  • Article

Drugs in Victorian Britain

| Louise Crane

Many common remedies were taken throughout the 19th century, with more people than ever using them. What was the social and cultural context of this development?

  • Article
  • Article

Mapping the body

These intricate anatomical drawings show how Ayurveda practitioners have explored the human body and how it works.

  • Article
  • Article

The yogi as hermit, warrior, criminal and showman

| Lalita Kaplish

How the modern world changed the life and reputation of the yogi.

  • Article
  • Article

Thunderbolts and lightning

| Ruth Garde

Fire in the sky has always exerted a hold on our imagination, even as early scientists unlocked the secrets of atmospheric electricity.

  • Article
  • Article

Beating the bodysnatchers

| Allison C Meier

When a rise in grave robbing called for strong measures, mortsafes became the unassailable solution. Allison C. Meier explores.

  • Article
  • Article

Getting under the skin

| Taryn Cain

Before the invention of X-ray in 1895 there was really only one way to accurately study the human body, and that was to cut it open.

  • Article
  • Article

The birth of the public museum

| Elissavet Ntoulia

The first public museums evolved from wealthy collectors’ cabinets of curiosities and were quickly recognised as useful vehicles for culture.

  • Article
  • Article

History of condoms from animal to rubber

| Taryn Cain

Come on a journey from the first recorded condoms in the 16th century to the modern female condoms in the 1990s – and everything in between.

  • Article
  • Article

Our endless quest for eternal youth

| Dr Lindsey FitzharrisKathleen Arundell

From poisonous 16th-century cosmetics to the latest “vampire facelift”, discover the fashions in unsavoury methods for improving our appearance.

  • Article
  • Article

Plant portraits

| Julia Nurse

The beautiful and mysterious illustrations in medieval herbals convey a wealth of knowledge about the plants they portray.

  • Article
  • Article

What is hysteria?

| Sarah Jaffray

Hysteria has long been associated with fanciful myths, but its history reveals how it has been used to control women’s behaviour and bodies

  • Article
  • Article

The rise and fall of a medical mesmerist

Uncover the fascinating story of the doctor who popularised hypnotism as a medical technique, and could name Dickens among his famous friends.

  • Article
  • Article

Between sickness and health

| Will ReesNaki Narh

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Exceptional talent and the trouble with IQ tests

| Anna Faherty

Is a high IQ really a mark of genius, or does something else explain the exceptional?

  • Article
  • Article

Deadly doses and the hardest of hard drugs

| Stevyn Colgan

The invention of the modern hypodermic syringe meant we could get high – or accidentally die – faster than before. Find out how this medical breakthrough was adapted for deadly uses.

  • Article
  • Article

Robinson Crusoe and the morality of solitude

| Professor Barbara Taylor

Robinson Crusoe, fiction’s most famous castaway, was certainly isolated, but did he suffer the intrinsically modern affliction of loneliness?

  • 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.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction

| Guy StaggJess Nash

Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.

  • Article
  • Article

Why the world needs collectors

| Anna Faherty

Those who collect play an important role as “facilitators of curiosity”, says Anna Faherty.