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Sharing breastmilk with parents

Alev Scott donated her frozen breastmilk to a hospital milk bank, but she was curious about other routes. Here she explores commercial operations and informal private arrangements.

Fantastic beasts and unnatural history

Find out how a 17th-century compendium of the natural world came to present fantastical beasts –like dragons – as real, living creatures.

Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars

‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?

Yoga adapts to time and place

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

Inside the mind of Ayurvedic Man’s curator, Bárbara Rodriguez Muñoz

The choices a curator makes – what goes in? what stays out? why? – are often as fascinating as the exhibition itself.

The child whose town rejected vaccines

Gloucester, 1896. Ethel Cromwell is taken ill at the height of Britain’s last great smallpox epidemic.

Sharing Nature: Over the rainbow

Here’s your choice of the most meaningful nature photo on the theme of health.

Lovesickness and ‘The Love Thief’

An 11th-century poem of love, lust and possibly gruesome death still resonates today.

Ken’s ten: looking back at ten years of Wellcome Collection

Wellcome Collection founder Ken Arnold picks his favourite exhibits.

How architecture builds a profession of stress

Architects might produce buildings that enhance our health, but at what cost? Kristin Hohenadel explores architecture’s pressurised and stressful culture.

When depression is worse than physical illness

Chronic physical illnesses can be accompanied by troubling depressive symptoms. Elly Aylwin-Foster urges doctors to treat every aspect of her condition with the same care.

Drawing the human animal

We might try to deny our animal instincts, but this series of extraordinary 17th-century drawings suggests they are only too apparent.

Book design, dissected

Gwen Smith talks to art director Peter Dyer about imagery, colour, type and staying true to the pages within.

How music opens the doors of memory and the mind

People living with dementia can often still listen, perform or move to music. What does this tell us about how memories are formed?

Daria Martin on ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’

Healing hard-working hands

The names we use to describe different hand injuries tell us about history, gender and class. Occupational therapist María Cristina Jiménez explores those injuries, and the changing ways we talk about them.

Bleeding healthy

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.

Menstruation, magic and moon myths

Why do stories cloaking periods in magic and mystery persist? Pragya Agarwal argues against myth-making and for inclusive menstrual education, grounded in fact.

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.

The poor child’s nurse

Charming family scenes in Victorian ads for children’s medicines were at odds with some of the dangerous ingredients they contained.

Deciding a date for the end of the world

When will the world end? Charlotte Sleigh explores how our obsession with dates and dramatic imaginings of the end can distract us from the dangers slowly creeping up on us.

Colonialism and the origins of skin bleaching

The widespread practice of skin bleaching was heavily influenced by the Western colonisation and slavery of African and South Asian countries. Ngunan Adamu explores this toxic history.

John Walter on ‘Alien Sex Club’

I’m a painter, but I make worlds.

The work of wet-nursing

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.

When kids are offered free cosmetic surgery

When they were a child, Jasmine Owens’ dentist offered to break their jaw – for free. It would make them look better, he said. Read on to find out whether or not they agreed.