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Language
Our bodies convey stories through an alphabet of shrugs and shoulder poems. If your shoulders could talk, what poems would they tell?
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Providing care across languages
When medics are taught in English but their patients speak other languages, effective communication becomes fraught. Niyoshi Shah explores the linguistic gaps between patient and doctor.
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The poetic language of health
When his doctors could only offer phone consultations, James Morland turned to poetry to make sense of the medical terms describing his symptoms and test results.
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The shifting shape of language
Author Jessica Andrews explores how her brother’s deafness has influenced her relationship with words and the world.
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A body apart from the head
We look back at the importance of the head, from how it’s influenced our language to the bold political statement of having it removed.
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Buildings
What language do the buildings surrounding you speak?
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Groan
Groans are to our primitive nature what language is to civilization. Uggggghhhh.
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Head
Body language can give your head a well-earned rest from talking and listening
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Swear
While we may censor and bleep them, we all have our sweary moments. Words for times when polite language doesn’t quite cut it. Can you remember the last thing that made you swear?
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The blood notebooks
Novelist Rupert Thomson explores his unusual behaviour during a time of self-imposed isolation.
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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 extraordinary body of Evatima Tardo
Darling of 19th-century American freak shows, Evatima Tardo remained serene as she withstood crucifixion and the bites of poisonous snakes. But she took the secret behind her abilities to her grave.
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Lonely bodies are hungry for more than turkey
At Christmas, many charities provide dinners for homeless or isolated people. Food is central to festive celebrations, but it can also satisfy our hunger for belonging and community.
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A wee spot of bother
Euphemisms can both appear to diminish experiences while at the same time making them easier to talk about. Carrie Hynds, who experienced the latter part of Northern Ireland’s “Troubles”, explores the relationship between language and trauma.
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Interpreting the Ayurvedic Man
A British Sign Language video is the latest interpretation of an unique 18th-century Nepali painting about Ayurvedic medicine.
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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.
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The law of periodicity for menstruation
Dr Edward Clarke's Law of Periodicity claimed that females who were educated alongside their male peers were developing their minds at the expense of their reproductive organs.
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On contagion
Reading descriptions of the way humans become infested by parasitic flatworms, Daisy Lafarge experienced painful physical symptoms. Perhaps the very creature she was studying had invaded her body.
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A brief history of tattoos
The earliest evidence of tattoo art dates from 5000 BC, and the practice continues to hold meaning for many cultures around the world.
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Rejecting shame and a decade of change
Jess Thom spent years trying to ignore and suppress the tics of Tourette’s syndrome. Read what happened when she decided to celebrate them instead.
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Heating up and drying out
Menopause doesn’t have to signify old age, but when your body feels like it’s letting you down, it’s hard not to believe that your useful life may be over.
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Dress and the magic of touch
Fashion, of course, is largely about appearance, but the feeling of clothes on your skin is a complex sensory experience. Shahidha Bari contemplates the human connections in the business of creating and wearing clothes.
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A story of death, trauma and austerity
Marienna Pope-Weidemann, whose teenage cousin Gaia died after going missing, advocates a rethink of our systems, which currently fail many in mental distress.
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The food diary and the power of unhealth
Food diaries might appear to present a strictly factual record of dietary choices, but what they don’t include is the more revealing story, as Virginia Hartley suggests.
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Coleridge’s hypochondria
An intense focus on his own bodily sensations led poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to self-medicate with narcotics. But this fascination also put Coleridge ahead of the medical sensibilities of his day.