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11 results
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The bishop’s profitable sex workers

| Dr Kate Lister

How did the Church rake in revenue from 14th-century sex regulations? Kate Lister explores a bishop’s lucrative rulebook.

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Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze

| Rose RuaneMary Bishop

Writer and artist Rose Ruane explores the paintings of Mary Bishop, created during a 30-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, which speak of constant medical surveillance and censorious self-examination.

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Black pepper to fuel fiery fights and cure haemorrhoids

| Alice White

This common condiment was once very valuable and, until surprisingly recently, used as a versatile medicine.

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Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages

| Katherine Harvey

The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.

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Sharing Nature: Parks for people

| Danny Birchall

Paula Broom’s photograph of Sydney’s Centennial Park shows the complexity and joy we find in urban greenery.

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Parasites and pests from the medieval to the modern

| Katherine Harvey

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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Reversing the psychiatric gaze

| Leah Sidi

Nineteenth-century psychiatrists were keen to categorise their patients’ illnesses reductively – by their physical appearance. But we can see a far more complex picture of mental distress, revealed by those patients able to express their inner worlds in art.

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How not to play

| Holly GramazioThomas S G Farnetti

Here are seven ways to sidestep doing as you’re told in a game. But strangely, they seem to be as much a part of playing as the game itself.

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Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high

| Stevyn Colgan

The rapid, short-lived high we get from whippets, reefers and vapes can be accompanied by long-term health consequences. The search is on for safer ways to get stoned.

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The tradesman who confronted the pestilence

| Anna Faherty

The City of London, 1665. As the Great Plague hits the capital, John New faces a deadly dilemma.

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Diagnosing OCD in the past

| Joanne EdgeThomas S G Farnetti

Mining the writings of and about famous historical figures, retrospective psychologists try to diagnose their mental health problems. But, inevitably, partial evidence is open to misinterpretation.