Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
83 results
  • Article
  • Article

Book design, dissected

| Gwendolyn Smith

Gwen Smith talks to art director Peter Dyer about imagery, colour, type and staying true to the pages within.

  • Article
  • Article

The amateur silversmith

| Geraldine Holden

It started as hobby and soon became a passion. Geraldine Holden tells us where the art and science of silver unite.

  • Article
  • Article

The metamorphosis of masturbation

| Dr Kate Lister

Throughout history, medics and campaigners have tried to stamp out masturbation – but is modern science transforming its reputation?

  • Article
  • Article

Revelations of blindness in the Middle Ages

| Jude Seal

Medieval texts, from Islamic medical treatises to Christian books of miracles, reveal surprisingly varied and complex experiences of blindness. But when medieval scholar Jude Seal experienced visual impairment themselves, they gained an even deeper understanding of the lives they were studying.

  • Article
  • Article

The secrets your teeth hold

| Michael A Berthaume

Discover how innocuous-looking human teeth hold a wealth of hidden information about our diet, health and evolution.

  • Article
  • Article

Unravelling genetic origins from the potato to cinchona

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

Starting with the humble potato, Nataly Allasi Canales reveals how researchers unearth the genetic origins of modern plant varieties, and explains why their work is so important for biodiversity.

  • Article
  • Article

On nature cures and taking the waters

| Jessica J LeeFaye Heller

When chilly outdoor swims began to chip away at her depression, Jessica J Lee was drawn to a closer study of the complex natural world around her.

  • Article
  • Article

Political brilliance and the power of self-promotion

| Anna Faherty

How do you convince people you’re exceptional? Meet the ultimate self-styled genius.

  • Article
  • Article

Exceptional talent and the trouble with IQ tests

| Anna Faherty

Is a high IQ really a mark of genius, or does something else explain the exceptional?

  • Long read
  • Long read

The ambivalence of air

| Daisy LafargeCarol Nazatto

Daisy Lafarge investigates the effects of air quality and pressure on body and mind, exploring air as cure, but one with contradictions.

  • 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.

  • Article
  • Article

Thunderbolts and lightning

| Ruth Garde

Fire in the sky has always exerted a hold on our imagination, even as early scientists unlocked the secrets of atmospheric electricity.

  • Article
  • Article

Graphic battles in pharmacy

James Morison’s campaign against the medical establishment inspired a wave of caricatures mocking his quack medicine.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Tracing the roots of our fears and fixations

| Kate SummerscaleTim Robinson

Kate Summerscale explores the history of our anxieties and compulsions, and the new phobias and manias that are always emerging.

  • Article
  • Article

A freezer full of breastmilk

| Alev ScottVicky Scott

When new mum Alev Scott began pumping her milk between feeds, she soon found she was freezing more breastmilk than her baby would ever need. So Alev began to investigate ways to share her oversupply.

  • Article
  • Article

Drawing the human animal

| Allison C Meier

We might try to deny our animal instincts, but this series of extraordinary 17th-century drawings suggests they are only too apparent.

  • Article
  • Article

What is structural violence?

| Laura BuiJessa Fairbrother

Structural violence is seemingly invisible. But its tentacles have invaded every part of many people’s lives, thoughts, experiences and expectations, shaping them in ways they don’t even realise.

  • Article
  • Article

Thousands of years of women’s pain

| Jaipreet VirdiAnne Howeson

Even in the 21st century, women with severe monthly pain find their suffering minimised or dismissed by the medical profession. Such pain is seen as simply a natural part of being female.

  • Article
  • Article

Female masturbation and the perils of pleasure

| Dr Kate Lister

Dr Kate Lister exposes the brutal 19th-century ‘cures’ for women who indulged in masturbation.

  • Article
  • Article

Plant portraits

| Julia Nurse

The beautiful and mysterious illustrations in medieval herbals convey a wealth of knowledge about the plants they portray.

  • Article
  • Article

Shakespeare and the four humours

| Nelly Ekström

Blood. Phlegm. Black bile. Yellow bile. The theory of the four humours informed many of Shakespeare's best-known characters, including the phlegmatic Falstaff.

  • Article
  • Article

A symbol of a lost homeland

| Yasmeen Abdel MajeedJacqueline Reem Salloum

The story of one protective amulet from Palestine reveals a complex tale. Encompassing the personal history of an influential doctor and collector, it provides a window onto dispossession and exile, and the painful repercussions that are still felt today.

  • Article
  • Article

Why we need to decolonise the skies

| Tana JosephMaïa Walcott

Astronomer Dr Tana Joseph explores how rethinking way we look at the stars could improve our relationship with our own planet and make it a healthier place to live.

  • Article
  • Article

Coasting to catastrophe

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

In climate change, everything – and everyone – is connected. The watery process that will gradually cut off the Isle of Thanet from the British mainland has begun, and everyone in the UK needs to pay attention.

  • Article
  • Article

We who can’t believe

| Anne BoyerNaki Narh

Unless she falls to the floor unconscious, Anne Boyer has always ignored signs of illness. Cancer, however, made her face her fallibility.