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15 results
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  • Article

The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists

| Anna Faherty

Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.

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Would you like to buy a dinosaur?

| Ross MacFarlane

Two remarkable letters and a drawing of a plesiosaur by Mary Anning offer a tantalising portal into the exciting world of fossil hunting and discovery of the 1800s.

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The child whose town rejected vaccines

| Anna Faherty

Gloucester, 1896. Ethel Cromwell is taken ill at the height of Britain’s last great smallpox epidemic.

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Primodos, paternalism and the fight to be heard

| Florence WildbloodKathleen Arundell

Journalist Florence Wildblood examines the case of Primodos – a conveniently quick but risky hormone pregnancy test that was prescribed in the 1960s and ’70s – and profiles two women at the story’s shocking heart.

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Intelligence testing, race and eugenics

| Nazlin BhimaniGergo Varga

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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Louis Wain’s cryptic cats

| Bryony Benge-Abbott

Once famous for his quirky cat illustrations, today Louis Wain is often portrayed as a ‘psychotic’ artist whose illness can be mapped out through his drawings. Here Bryony Benge-Abbott takes a more rounded view.

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The meanings of hurt

| Alanna SkuseSteven Pocock

In the early modern period, gruesome incidents of self-castration and other types of self-injury garnished the literature of the time. Alanna Skuse explores the messages these wounds conveyed.

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Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction

| Guy StaggJess Nash

Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.

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The poor child’s nurse

| Briony Hudson

Charming family scenes in Victorian ads for children’s medicines were at odds with some of the dangerous ingredients they contained.

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Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug

| Douglas SmallBenjamin Gilbert

Today, cocaine has a very poor public image as one of the causes of crime and violence. But for the Victorians it was welcomed as the saviour of modern surgery.

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The pain that punished feminists

| Jaipreet VirdiAnne Howeson

In a society that viewed getting the vote, and pursuing an education and career, as unnatural goals for women, the pain of endometriosis was viewed as nature’s retribution.

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Journeying home

| Chris North

A serious health scare was the catalyst to Chris beginning the process of understanding his experiences more clearly, and using that new insight to help other intersex people.

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Eugenics and the welfare state

| Indy BhullarGergo Varga

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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How music opens the doors of memory and the mind

| Philip Ball

People living with dementia can often still listen, perform or move to music. What does this tell us about how memories are formed?

  • Long read
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Healthy scepticism

| Caitjan GaintyAgnes Arnold-ForsterPaul AddaeFranklyn Rodgers

Healthcare sceptics – like those opposed to Covid-19 vaccinations – often have serious, nuanced reasons for doubting medical authorities.