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  • Article

The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria

| Natasha Ruiz-GómezKathleen Arundell

A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.

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When monarchs healed the sick

| Rita YatesSteven Pocock

Our current Queen fortunately doesn’t have to spend hours laying hands on the sick to cure them. But it was a different story for monarchs of the early modern era, whose touch was a sought-after treatment for scrofula.

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Life before assistive technology

| Alex LeeIan Treherne

When an inherited condition caused Alex Lee’s vision to deteriorate, he began to discover the technologies that would help him navigate the world around him. Here he describes how his life began to change.

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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.

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The eye of darshan

| Adrian Plau

The Hindu concept of darshan means “divine revelation”, but it’s also about the multilayered ways in which we see the world around us. Adrian Plau explains how one image in a Panjabi manuscript relates to darshan, and why it’s so striking.

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A head apart from the body

| Rob Bidder

We look to the future of science via science fiction to explore how a head may live apart from its body.

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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.

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Theriac: An ancient brand?

| Briony Hudson

The name theriac survived for around for two millennia as a pharmaceutical term. But a ‘brand’ name is not always a guarantee of quality.

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The relationship between science and art

| Victoria Kingston

Often seen as opposites, science and art both depend on observation and synthesis.

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The conditional child

| Deanna Fei

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.