- Article
- Article
The birth of Britain's National Health Service
Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.
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Wonder Woman’s wonder women
Discover more about the women who inspired an icon: Wonder Woman’s story of bondage, bracelets and birth control.
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When parenting brings a paradigm shift
There were no indications during her pregnancy that Carol Nahra’s son would have severe, life-threatening disabilities. Here she describes the stages on her journey from shock to love and beyond.
- Article
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Thalidomide babies
In a time without scans or antenatal tests, neither medical staff nor parents were prepared for the damage to the foetus caused by the thalidomide drug.
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Intertwined with air
Siwakorn Odochao details his people’s way of perceiving trees and humans as intimately connected, and draws on the air as the element that weaves between them. Through the co-dependency of humans and trees to prepare the air for each other, he elaborates on the relationship between air, health and environment.
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Mary Morris-Knibb, a woman of courage and ability
A Jamaican election banner reveals the story of a pioneering women’s rights campaigner who continues to inspire 80 years on.
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Eugenics and the welfare state
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.
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Intelligence testing, race and eugenics
Specious ideas and assumptions about intelligence that were born during the great flourishing of eugenics well over 100 years ago still inform the British education system today, as Nazlin Bhimani reveals.
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- Article
A history of twins in science
For thousands of years, twins have been a source of fascination in mythology, religion and the arts. Since the 19th century, they have also been the subject of scientific study and experimentation.
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- Article
The healing power of breathing
The healing powers of different breathing methods are said to help with a range of health challenges, from asthma to PTSD. Effie Webb traces their spiritual origins and explores the modern proliferation of breathwork therapies.
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- Article
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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A history of gestation outside the body
It’s been over 400 years since a Swiss alchemist theorised that foetuses could develop outside the womb. Claire Horn examines incubator technology past and present, and explores the possibilities recent prototypes might bring.
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The search for a cure for endometriosis
Discover how a white American doctor’s experimental operations on black female slaves laid the foundations for modern gynaecological surgery.
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The secret sting of cystitis
Agnes Arnold-Forster recounts her experiences of cystitis, explaining how this illness intersects with sexism, shame, and stigma from medical professionals.
- Long read
- Long read
Primodos, paternalism and the fight to be heard
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.
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Tracing the toxic story of tear gas
Investigating tear gas – from factory to Black Lives Matter protest – Imani Jacqueline Brown uncovers a toxic legacy where pollution, violence and racism are intimately entwined.
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This is a MOOD
Adults might sometimes dismiss teenagers’ ‘moodiness’, but adolescence is a time of complex shifts in brain and body, which are intricately bound up with fluctuating feelings.
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History of condoms from animal to rubber
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.
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Are people born violent?
Laura Bui explores how the nature vs nurture debate applies to those who commit homicide.
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The child whose town rejected vaccines
Gloucester, 1896. Ethel Cromwell is taken ill at the height of Britain’s last great smallpox epidemic.
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Disturbed minds and disruptive bodies
Prison officers tried to regulate women’s minds and bodies and maintain a new disciplinary routine in the second half of the 1800s.
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The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists
Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.
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Witches
Many of the women persecuted as witches in the 16th-century “witch craze” were over 50 and exhibited signs of menopause. Helen Foster suggests that the stigma of the wicked witch still affects older women and how they deal with menopause.
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Crones
Menopause can be tough when nobody talks about it and all the stereotypes are negative, but it can also be transformative, marking the start of a new stage of life - cronehood.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Pum Dunbar’s living lessons
Read the ‘legends’ that give insight into Pum Dunbar’s creative process while producing her recent series of collages.