- Article
- Article
On body horror and growing up strange
A young child’s unusual feelings, reactions and assertions are routinely dismissed by adults. Find out how manga horror stories became a source of strength, and helped them trust their adult body.
- Article
- Article
Self-obsessing in the age of selfies
The tiny, joyful spark of a social media ‘like’ can lead to a damaging obsession. Find out how far people will go when their phone addiction gets the upper hand.
- Book extract
- Book extract
A doctor, his community and coronavirus
Reflecting on his experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic, GP Gavin Francis vividly recalls a home visit to a man stricken with breathing difficulties.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Renaissance women and their killer cosmetics
In this extract from ‘How to be a Renaissance Woman’, Jill Burke delves into a complex world of beauty products, poison and patriarchy – and reveals the impossible contradictions of femininity faced by 16th-century women.
- Book extract
- Book extract
A dispatch from the frontiers of man and machine
Harry Parker’s life changed overnight when he stepped on a bomb and lost his legs. He argues that being an amputee doesn’t make him an outlier; we are all hybrid.
- Article
- Article
Appointments with plants
In our ‘always on’ culture, poet Elizabeth-Jane Burnett find a route away from screens – by following the ways of the trees and plants outside.
- Article
- Article
When monarchs healed the sick
Our current Queen fortunately doesn’t have to spend hours laying hands on the sick to cure them. But it was a different story for monarchs of the early modern era, whose touch was a sought-after treatment for scrofula.
- Article
- Article
The leukaemia diagnosis I didn’t see coming
Treatment for leukaemia kept journalist Hannah Partos in isolation, like the female prisoner whose image inspired her to write this piece.
- Article
- Article
Mapping the body
These intricate anatomical drawings show how Ayurveda practitioners have explored the human body and how it works.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Surviving the storm of postnatal depression
Emma Jane Unsworth lays bare the despair of postnatal depression and shares her route to recovery.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Naked, not nude
Classicist Caroline Vout argues that it’s time to take the dust covers off the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and to encounter their bodies not nude, but naked.
- Article
- Article
A brief history of ventilation
As ventilators continue to play an important part in helping very ill coronavirus patients, medical historian Dr Lindsey Fitzharris traces their development from the first attempts at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation through centuries of medical crises.
- Article
- Article
Between two summers
As Michael Malay tends his allotment, absorbing all the sensations of his surroundings, he finds the repetition of work calms the mind.
- Article
- Article
Living with early onset Parkinson’s
Ten years ago, three little words changed Pete Langman’s world.