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20 results
  • In pictures
  • In pictures

How an animation educated the army

| Perside Ndandu

In a 1940s cartoon intended to persuade US troops to take malaria medication, the makers pitted a clodhopping soldier against a wily mosquito. If only Private SNAFU had followed the government’s advice.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life

| Aarathi Prasad

The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.

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  • Article

Dyslexia and its misconceptions

| Madeleine MorleyLucy Grainge

Overcoming common myths about dyslexia only adds to the challenges of growing up with the condition. Madeleine Morley, who was diagnosed with dyslexia aged eight, goes into myth-busting mode and shares her personal experiences.

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  • Article

Yoga adapts to time and place

| Lalita Kaplish

A yoga teacher in 1930s India inspired today’s transnational practice with his spectacular fusion of tradition and innovation.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The history of brainwashing

| Daniel PickSteven Pocock

Is it possible to control what other people think? In this abridged extract from his book ‘Brainwashed’, psychoanalyst and historian Daniel Pick offers us a new history of thought control.

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How can we prevent violence?

| Laura BuiJessa Fairbrother

Evidence shows that strategies to prevent some types of violence can be very effective, while other, less well-acknowledged forms continue unabated. But hope can still guide us into a more peaceful future.

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Thomas Sankara and the stomachs that made themselves heard

| Perry BlanksonAnna Keville Joyce

Thomas Sankara’s vision to transform farming and health in Burkina Faso turned to dust with his assassination. Perry Blankson highlights the considerable achievements of Sankara’s brief span in power.

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Native Americans through the 19th-century lens

| Allison C Meier

The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.

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The unearthly children of science fiction’s Cold War

| Ken Hollings

In the 1950s a new figure emerged in British novels, film and television: a disturbing young alien that revealed postwar society’s fear of the unruly power of teenagers.

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Six personal health zines that might change your life

| Loesja VigourNicola Cook

Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.

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NHS Blue: the colour of universal healthcare

| Cal Flyn

The 1980s and 1990s saw ideas from the world of business infiltrating the NHS, including the introduction of an internal market, followed by a corporate branding exercise.

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The art of soundproof design

| Kristin Hohenadel

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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Does mass media pave the way to fascism?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

In the aftermath of World War II, psychoanalysts found the psychological roots of authoritarianism closer to home than was comfortable.

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Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars

| Alex Green

‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?

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  • Article

Guerrilla public health

| Harry Shapiro

From safe-use guides to needle exchange schemes, Harry Shapiro reflects on 40 years of drug harm reduction in the UK.

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  • Article

What is air, and how do we know?

| Hasok ChangTracy Satchwill

Watching bubbles in fermenting beer led 18th-century scientist Joseph Priestley to invent sparkling water – and to discover that different gases make up the air we breathe.

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How tuberculosis became a test case for eugenic theory

| Hannah CornishGergo Varga

A 19th-century collaboration that failed to prove how facial features could indicate the diseases people were most likely to suffer from became a significant stepping stone in the new ‘science’ of eugenics.

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Abandoning daydreams of a life without diabetes

| Daisy Watson ShawTony Pickering

After years of longing for a cure for her type 1 diabetes, Daisy Watson Shaw, partly due to medical advances in managing the condition, has reached a state of acceptance. Her wishes now are for greater understanding.

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It’s getting mighty crowded

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

Mid-20th-century population-density research on mice produced a whiskered apocalypse, predicted to become the fate of humans too. But perhaps a more compassionate approach could fend this off.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Tracing the roots of our fears and fixations

| Kate SummerscaleTim Robinson

Kate Summerscale explores the history of our anxieties and compulsions, and the new phobias and manias that are always emerging.