- Article
- Article
Six personal health zines that might change your life
Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The friendly societies and healthcare
For a couple of centuries, friendly societies plugged the healthcare gap between expensive private care and charitable institutions for many thousands of people in the UK.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Measure for measure?
From censuses to smartwatches, Ross MacFarlane shows how we have tracked health across the centuries.
- Article
- Article
Desperate housewives and suburban neurosis
Discover how a pioneering health centre replaced housewives’ supposedly empty home lives with a social space that encouraged healthy child rearing.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Guilty chimneys and the threat to the air we breathe
Industrialisation brought visibly polluted air to the world’s cities, captured in various media from the 1800s. Angela Saward explores the methods used, and the messages the images conveyed.
- Article
- Article
Believe yourself better
There’s more to recovery than medication. In future, our unconscious minds could be recruited to put a positive spin on our health problems, helping us feel better faster.
- Interview
- Interview
How to design an HIV awareness campaign
Using carefully crafted, colourful graphics is one public health team’s creative approach.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The serious side of historical games
Some games carry a weighty message, from the earliest form of snakes and ladders that led to either heaven or hell, to chess pieces representing the dangerous manoeuvres of unsafe sex in the 80s.
- In pictures
- In pictures
In pursuit of purity
Many cultures associate physical cleanliness with spiritual purity, while disease and dirt are signs of moral pollution.
- Article
- Article
Chronic illness and the pressure to get well
When she was ill, Naomi Morris assumed she was on a straightforward journey from sickness to health. But what if our experiences of mental distress and ill health aren’t that neat?
- In pictures
- In pictures
Backstroke to the future
Now one of the most popular forms of exercise, the health-giving properties of swimming have not always been recognised. Dive into a gallery that charts the course from water as site of danger to a space of health.
- Podcast
- Podcast
What lies ahead
After five long months, Mark Thomas is moving out of his mum’s and looking ahead. In the final episode of his podcast, Mark asks his network of health workers how they feel about the future.
- Podcast
- Podcast
Stress tests
In episode five of his podcast, Mark Thomas considers coping and resilience, talking to health workers about how they’re weathering a storm like coronavirus.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Why the NHS is worth saving
In this extract from his latest book, ‘Free For All’, Dr Gavin Francis poses challenging questions to be addressed if a health service that’s free for all at the point of use is to remain possible.
- Article
- Article
Hysteria
Mental health and emotional symptoms are common during menopause, but a long history of dismissing sufferers as 'hysterical women', at the mercy of their emotions has made it much harder to discuss these issues and to get support.
- Article
- Article
Sigrid Rausing’s prescription for writing
The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘Stay With Me’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.
- Article
- Article
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s prescription for writing
The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘Stay With Me’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.
- Article
- Article
Lindsey Fitzharris’s prescription for writing
The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘The Butchering Art’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.
- Article
- Article
Meredith Wadman’s prescription for writing
The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘The Vaccine Race’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.
- Article
- Article
Mark O’Connell’s prescription for writing
The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘To Be a Machine’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.
- Article
- Article
Yoga gets physical
Modern yoga owes a debt to the physical culture movement that created a world obsessed with health and fitness.
- Article
- Article
Kathryn Mannix’s prescription for writing
The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘With the End in Mind’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.
- 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.
- Article
- Article
How the Peckham Experiment inspired my fiction
Find out how an unruly mass of archive material from a 1930s radical health centre has inspired brand new writing.
- Article
- Article
Is your job bad for your teeth?
Some surprising occupations pose hidden risks to dental health. Could your ivories be in particular peril?