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Two health centres, two ideologies
Two futuristic, light-filled buildings aimed to bring forward-looking healthcare to city dwellers. But the principles behind each were very different.
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The art of soundproof design
Too much noise is more than annoying – it has serious negative effects on health and cognitive ability. Find out how designers and architects are mitigating the downsides of sound.
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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?
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The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria
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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The building as tool of healing
When we’re ill, it’s not just medical care that helps to treat us. Architects have discovered that the right environment can play an important part too.
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The birth of the public museum
The first public museums evolved from wealthy collectors’ cabinets of curiosities and were quickly recognised as useful vehicles for culture.
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The healing power of the physic garden
Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.
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The side effects of lithium mining
Laura Grace Simpkins attempts to untangle some uncomfortable truths about the social and environmental costs of making her medication.
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The anatomy of a brain dissection
Dissecting the brain after death not only helps confirm a diagnosis, but it can also teach us so much more about the symptoms and causes of brain diseases and how to treat them.
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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 politics and power of audio-description
Traditional theatre audio-description often lets down artists and audiences. But, done well, it has the potential to be a force for creativity as well as accessibility.
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Disabled musicians and the fight to perform
Music might be the universal language, but unfortunately it doesn’t come with universal access. London-based artist Miss Jacqui discusses the barriers to her career with Jamie Hale.
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Printing the body
The 18th century saw multiple technical developments in both printing and medicine. Colourful collaborations ensued – to the benefit of growing ranks of medical students.
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- Book extract
Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life
The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.
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Finding a cure for homesickness
While technology can mitigate some aspects of homesickness, other components of home are harder to replicate. Find out how 21st-century studies are helping homesickness sufferers find silver linings in their new situation.
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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.
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Sick of being lonely
When his relationship ended, Thom James first withdrew from the world, then began to suffer from illnesses with no apparent physical cause.
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The unexpected parallels between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wellcome Collection
With the news of a sequel in development, Russell Dornan explores parallels between ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and Wellcome Collection.
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Natural eating in Jamaica and the Caribbean
Riaz Phillips is passionate about the Jamaican food he grew up with and plant-based Caribbean food he came to later, like roti, baiganee and vegan stews and curries. Here he explores the origins and surging popularity of these natural ‘health foods’.
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Desperate housewives and suburban neurosis
Discover how a pioneering health centre replaced housewives’ supposedly empty home lives with a social space that encouraged healthy child rearing.
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Remote romance and the common cold
Getting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Of incubators, orchids and artificial wombs
In this extract from Claire Horn’s new book, ‘Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth’, she traces the development of the artificial womb, soon to become a reality.
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Born in the NHS
Despite underfunding, strikes and scandals, the first two decades of the 2000s has seen the British people’s love of and loyalty to the NHS soar.
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How your hairdresser could save your life
Barbers and hairdressers have a unique view of us – one that means they can spot potentially dangerous health problems. Find out how buzzcuts can lead to blood-pressure checks, and dip-dyes show the way to the dermatologist.
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“Disability is never an individual diagnosis”
As a 35-year-old man, I am sure that my fear of getting old is not uncommon. But for me, that fear goes deeper. I have spina bifida.