- In pictures
- In pictures
Euston’s lost burial ground
Closing St James’s Gardens for a new rail line required the largest exhumation in British history. Tom Bolton explores the stories of some of the people who were buried there.
- Article
- Article
Keeping death close
Scattering her father’s ashes, Lauren Entwistle found herself longing for something physical that proved he once was a living, breathing person. Here she reflects on the objects that help us to grieve and remember.
- Long read
- Long read
Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction
Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.
- Book extract
- Book extract
The 200-year search for normal people
Sarah Chaney poses the question we’ve likely all asked at some point in our lives: 'Am I normal?’, and explores whether normality even exists.
- Article
- Article
A head apart from the body
We look to the future of science via science fiction to explore how a head may live apart from its body.
- Article
- Article
Hunting lost plants in botanical collections
A bark specimen at Kew recalls the story of a South American man who harvested the most potent source of the only effective malaria treatment available in the late 1800s. Killed for his work and forgotten by history, Manuel Mamani was a victim of the colonial juggernaut.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
The unearthly children of science fiction’s Cold War
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.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
The search for a cure for endometriosis
Discover how a white American doctor’s experimental operations on black female slaves laid the foundations for modern gynaecological surgery.
- Article
- Article
Robinson Crusoe and the morality of solitude
Robinson Crusoe, fiction’s most famous castaway, was certainly isolated, but did he suffer the intrinsically modern affliction of loneliness?
- Article
- Article
Defying deafness through music
Did you know that Beethoven’s profession meant he was ashamed to admit to being deaf? Find out how similar prejudices persist today and how our writer is helping to break them down.
- Article
- Article
How to play on the District line between Stepney Green and Embankment
From the crossword to the smartphone, distractions for the commuter relieve the tedium of crowded, dull journeys. Game designer Holly Gramazio delves into the world of games for trains.
- Article
- Article
Acid and the sexual psychonauts
How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.
- Article
- Article
Building resilience in a racist world
With the resurgence of racism in today’s UK, Louisa Adjoa Parker reflects on the trauma of growing up in a racist society and explores how victims could begin to heal.
- In pictures
- In pictures
How Mills & Boon made medicine romantic
‘Doctor-nurse’ romances are a hugely popular trope. Agnes Arnold-Forster explores their history and surprisingly nuanced depictions of womanhood, hospitals and the welfare state.
- Photo story
- Photo story
Beautiful bedding and how to die well
When you are unwell, your bed can be both a refuge and a prison. Discover how artist Poppy Nash created a bed-centred artwork inspired by her own chronic illness and depictions of ill health from history.
- Article
- Article
The complex longing for home
It could be mild, an almost poetic longing. Or it could be visceral, deep, an overwhelming feeling that eats into your everyday life. Come with Gail Tolley as she introduces a deep dive into homesickness.
- Article
- Article
Healing through ink
Taking an approach learned from his OCD treatment, Josh Weeks faced his fear of getting tattoos, and embraced inking as part of the healing process.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
The Key to Memory: Follow your nose
Elissavet Ntoulia explores what a pair of pomanders can tell us about how and why we remember.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Permission to recover
When it comes to illness, sometimes the end is just the beginning. Gavin Francis argues why being given permission to recover is so important.
- Article
- Article
Duelling doctors
An enduring enthusiasm for 18th-century gentlemen to defend their ‘honour’ by duelling placed doctors in a delicate position. Specially when they faced being shot themselves.
- Article
- Article
Are people born violent?
Laura Bui explores how the nature vs nurture debate applies to those who commit homicide.
- Article
- Article
Performance art, frozen in time
For over a year, live performance art with an audience present has been largely impossible. But still images continue to allow artists in this sphere to inspire audiences at home.