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38 results
  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Medicine Now... then

| Danny BirchallSteven Pocock

A look back at highlights from Medicine Now, an exhibition from 2007 where artists and audiences explored the connections between contemporary medicine, life and art.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

The evolution of war-zone medicine

| Sonia Zhuravlyova

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.

  • Article
  • Article

The art of scientific glassblowing

| Helen BabbsThomas S G Farnetti

Exciting things happen when art, craft, engineering and science collide. Glassblower Gayle Price is proof of that.

  • Article
  • Article

The relationship between science and art

| Victoria Kingston

Often seen as opposites, science and art both depend on observation and synthesis.

  • Article
  • Article

The politics and power of audio-description

| Jamie HaleKirsten IrvingChristopher Andreou

Traditional theatre audio-description often lets down artists and audiences. But, done well, it has the potential to be a force for creativity as well as accessibility.

  • Article
  • Article

Sun salutations and yoga synthesis in India

| Lalita Kaplish

Surya namaskars, or sun salutations, have a long history in South Asia, but their place at the heart of modern yoga is more recent.

  • Article
  • Article

Picturing mental health

| Lalita KaplishSolomon Szekir-Papasavva

Ron Hampshire created artworks while resident at Netherne psychiatric hospital. What can we learn from them?

  • Article
  • Article

Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze

| Rose RuaneMary Bishop

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Mapping the body

These intricate anatomical drawings show how Ayurveda practitioners have explored the human body and how it works.

  • Article
  • Article

The healing power of the physic garden

| Iona Glen

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

The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria

| Natasha Ruiz-GómezKathleen Arundell

A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.

  • Article
  • Article

The making of ‘Quacks’

| Helen Babbs

How do you create a medical comedy that’s authentic and laugh-out-loud funny?

  • Article
  • Article

Aphasia and drawing elephants

| Thomas Parkinson

When Thomas Parkinson investigated the history of “speech science”, he discovered an unexpected link between empire, elephants and aphasia.

  • Article
  • Article

An animated almanac for the modern world

| Thomas Coleman

Discover why Thomas Coleman wanted to make a medieval folding almanac relevant to the modern world and see the film for yourself.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

What the wind can bring

| Amanda Thomson

In this extract from ‘This Book is a Plant’, Amanda Thomson shares a newfound fascination with flowers, and reveals why our relationship with plants can also be complicated.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the minds of Teeth’s two curators, James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing

| Gwendolyn Smith

James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing talk visceral reactions, their interactions and object extractions.

  • Article
  • Article

Guide dogs or good dogs from the Middle Ages

| Jude SealSteven Pocock

Medieval illustrations often show blind people, sometimes with dogs. But working out whether these were actually guide dogs involves a mix of detailed detective work and expert speculation.

  • Article
  • Article

Printing the body

| Julia Nurse

The 18th century saw multiple technical developments in both printing and medicine. Colourful collaborations ensued – to the benefit of growing ranks of medical students.

  • Article
  • Article

Believe yourself better

| A R Hopwood

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.

  • Article
  • Article

The poetic language of health

| James MorlandPippa Dyrlaga

When his doctors could only offer phone consultations, James Morland turned to poetry to make sense of the medical terms describing his symptoms and test results.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Refugee health on a pound a day

| Vanesha Kirita SinghBenjamin Gilbert

Two refugees living a hand-to-mouth existence in the UK explain how trauma has affected their health, and how a little kindness is bringing them hope.

  • Article
  • Article

Sick of the theatre

| Michael Regnier

What makes the stage a good place to share real-life experiences of ill health?

  • Article
  • Article

The case of the cancerous stomach

| Thomas MorrisEmily Evans

Steak and schnitzel were on the menu again after Theodor Billroth successfully excised a woman’s stomach cancer in 1881. Remarkably, today’s surgeons still perform the same procedure, with slight modifications.

  • Article
  • Article

Divining the world through an artist’s almanac

| Amanda Couch

Amanda Couch's artists book, 'Huwawa in the Everyday: an almanac' is inspired by the entrail like folds of a medieval folding and its function as a guide for astrological divinations linking the body, health and the heavens. Like the original almanac her work is designed to be carried out into the wider world.

  • Article
  • Article

The power of unicorns

| Muriel Bailly

Discover the unlikely connection between pharmaceuticals and unicorns.