- In pictures
- In pictures
Mandrake medicine and myths
There’s a lot of plant lore about the mandrake, going back to ancient times. Find out more about how this unremarkable-looking plant got its magical reputation.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Mass murder and marvellous medicine
Find out how arsenic has been used for good and ill, to cure and kill, for centuries.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The evolution of war-zone medicine
The need to deal with battlefield injuries has led to inventive designs for extreme situations. Find out how camel-drawn ambulances and flat-pack hospitals have helped casualties survive.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Herbal medicines and the early modern menopause
Held responsible for their own “rebellious distempers” – or menopausal symptoms – women had no choice but to keep quiet and resort to unpalatable concoctions in the hope of relief, as Julia Nurse explains.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Moles’ feet, dried frogs and other folk medicines
Early-20th-century folklorist Edward Lovett made it his mission to discover the nation’s beliefs and superstitions, collecting amulets from cottage cupboards up and down the country.
- Article
- Article
Illuminated manuscripts, illuminating medicines
From rare bugs to exorbitantly priced plant parts, find out more about the artistic and medical uses of pigments from the past.
- 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
The fine line between collecting and hoarding
Being ‘a collector’ is often celebrated but being labelled ‘a hoarder’ can be humiliating, at best. Georgie Evans asks what makes one set of objects a collection and another a hoard.
- Article
- Article
Ken’s ten: looking back at ten years of Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection founder Ken Arnold picks his favourite exhibits.
- Article
- Article
Indian botanicals and heritage wars
Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.
- Article
- Article
Mask, ritual and fertility
Today many of us learn about fertility, conception and pregnancy online. But that wasn’t always the way. Discover how masks and rituals played an important educational role.
- Article
- Article
Bleeding healthy
For thousands of years, and in many different cultures, people have practised bloodletting for health and medical reasons. Julia Nurse explains where and when bleeding was used, how it was done, and why.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The original drama of operating theatres
Medicine as ‘theatre’ began in the 16th century, when paying audiences enjoyed candlelight, live music – and a cadaver being dissected in front of them, all the in name of education.
- Article
- Article
Interpreting the Ayurvedic Man
A British Sign Language video is the latest interpretation of an unique 18th-century Nepali painting about Ayurvedic medicine.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Faces from the archives
Meet some of the lesser-known but no less extraordinary figures in the history of medicine, through a series of original portraits.
- In pictures
- In pictures
We are the survivors of slow-motion epidemics
Pioneering epidemiologist Dr Alice Stewart realised how things in our daily lives could be as deadly as any infectious disease.
- Article
- Article
A medieval guide to practical magic
With few sources of effective help available when treating an injured patient, the medieval physician could instead stage a healing ceremony using a practical how-to guide he carried with him.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Medical manipulations and the history of physiotherapy
From gymnastics to splints and uterine massage, the history of physiotherapy takes in a surprisingly broad range of people and practices.
- Article
- Article
The healing power of the physic garden
Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.
- Article
- Article
Epidemic threats and racist legacies
Epidemiology is the systematic, data-driven study of health and disease in populations. But as historian Jacob Steere-Williams suggests, this most scientific of fields emerged in the 19th century imbued with a doctrine of Western imperialism – a legacy that continues to influence how we talk about disease.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The trouble with absinthe
Famed for inducing “green fairy” hallucinations, absinthe has been simultaneously lauded for its medicinal properties and condemned as the source of debasement and debauchery.
- In pictures
- In pictures
From cacao to chocolate
Discover how chocolate morphed from a prized, spiritually significant commodity to a quasi-medicine, and finally to the sweet treat we eat almost daily.
- Article
- Article
Jim, the horse of death
Horses’ blood was used to produce an antitoxin that saved thousands of children from dying from diphtheria, but contamination was a deadly problem. Find out how a horse called Jim was the catalyst for the beginnings of medical regulation.
- Article
- Article
Aphasia and drawing elephants
When Thomas Parkinson investigated the history of “speech science”, he discovered an unexpected link between empire, elephants and aphasia.
- Article
- Article
Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze
Writer and artist Rose Ruane explores the paintings of Mary Bishop, created during a 30-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, which speak of constant medical surveillance and censorious self-examination.