- Article
- Article
Intelligence testing, race and eugenics
Specious ideas and assumptions about intelligence that were born during the great flourishing of eugenics well over 100 years ago still inform the British education system today, as Nazlin Bhimani reveals.
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- Article
Eugenics and the welfare state
Indy Bhullar explores the ideas of William Beveridge and Richard Titmuss, who were strongly influenced by eugenic thinking, and yet championed the idea of the welfare state.
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- Article
How tuberculosis became a test case for eugenic theory
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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- Article
The secret lives of Britain’s first Black physicians
Dr Annabel Sowemimo explores the web of connections between early Black British doctors, the role of empire in West Africa and the pernicious reach of scientific racism.
- Article
- Article
A history of twins in science
For thousands of years, twins have been a source of fascination in mythology, religion and the arts. Since the 19th century, they have also been the subject of scientific study and experimentation.
- Article
- Article
History of condoms from animal to rubber
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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- Article
Yoga gets physical
Modern yoga owes a debt to the physical culture movement that created a world obsessed with health and fitness.
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Sun salutations and yoga synthesis in India
Surya namaskars, or sun salutations, have a long history in South Asia, but their place at the heart of modern yoga is more recent.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Tree of life
Ross MacFarlane traces the ideas around Charles Darwin’s famous ‘Tree of Life’, both back to the Bible, and forward to its appropriation by the proponents of eugenics.
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- Article
Why gene editing can never eliminate disability
In a world where DNA testing and gene editing offer ways to eliminate certain disabilities, Jaipreet Virdi explores a more accepting and inclusive approach.
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- Article
The ‘undesirable epileptic’
Abused in her marriage for being 'a sick woman', Aparna Nair looked to history to make sense of the response to her epilepsy. She discovered how centuries of fear and discrimination were often endorsed by science and legislation.
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- Article
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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- Article
The epilepsy diagnosis
Epilepsy exists between the mind and body, something that Aparna Nair experienced for herself when she was diagnosed as a teenager.
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- Article
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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- Article
London, city of lost hospitals
Come on the trail of hundreds of ghost hospitals, whose remnants hold clues to medical treatments of the past.
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- Article
Disability in the post-pandemic world
Disabled people have suffered more than most during Covid-19, but there is still a chance to build a kinder society. Dolly Sen explores whether we will come together, or allow more brutal disparities to develop in the worsening recession.
- Article
- Article
The conditional child
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.