- Article
- Article
Tragic artists and their all-consuming passions
Does having a debilitating disease help or hinder creative genius?
- Article
- Article
Sun salutations and yoga synthesis in India
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
Soil health and dairy farming in the UK
Although healthy soil means more nutritious dairy products, modern intensive farming methods pollute and degrade the environment. However, a regenerative agriculture movement is kicking back against mainstream industrial farming.
- Article
- Article
Womb milk and the puzzle of the placenta
A human baby needs milk to survive – and this holds true even before it’s born. Joanna Wolfarth explores “womb milk”, as well as ancient and modern ideas about the placenta.
- Article
- Article
How tuberculosis became a test case for eugenic theory
A 19th-century collaboration that failed to prove how facial features could indicate the diseases people were most likely to suffer from became a significant stepping stone in the new ‘science’ of eugenics.
- Long read
- Long read
Primodos, paternalism and the fight to be heard
Journalist Florence Wildblood examines the case of Primodos – a conveniently quick but risky hormone pregnancy test that was prescribed in the 1960s and ’70s – and profiles two women at the story’s shocking heart.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Tracing the roots of our fears and fixations
Kate Summerscale explores the history of our anxieties and compulsions, and the new phobias and manias that are always emerging.
- Article
- Article
What is air, and how do we know?
Watching bubbles in fermenting beer led 18th-century scientist Joseph Priestley to invent sparkling water – and to discover that different gases make up the air we breathe.
- Article
- Article
The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria
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
A little wildness
To salve her longing for a dog, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan chose a puppy. She found that, despite centuries of domestication, her dog still retains aspects of her wild ancestry.
- Interview
- Interview
Inside the minds of Teeth’s two curators, James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing
James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing talk visceral reactions, their interactions and object extractions.
- Article
- Article
Rag mags and monthly issues: Five period zines to stop you seeing red
Using humour, personal experience and political activism to explore the bloody reality of menstruation.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life
The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.
- 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.
- Article
- Article
Providing care across languages
When medics are taught in English but their patients speak other languages, effective communication becomes fraught. Niyoshi Shah explores the linguistic gaps between patient and doctor.
- Article
- Article
The secret lives of Britain’s first Black physicians
Dr Annabel Sowemimo explores the web of connections between early Black British doctors, the role of empire in West Africa and the pernicious reach of scientific racism.
- 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
Fleeing fear, defying prejudice
As teenage refugee Sedra Al-Yousef grappled with rebuilding her life and education in another country, at the same time she used compassion and humanity to demolish populist anti-refugee myths.
- Article
- Article
Remote diagnosis from wee to the Web
Medical practice might have moved on from when patients posted flasks of their urine for doctors to taste, but telehealth today keeps up the tradition of remote diagnosis – to our possible detriment.
- Article
- Article
How Indigenous insight inspires sustainable science
The forest of the Amazon Basin is inextricably bound up with the lives of the Indigenous peoples living there. Find out how they feel about the forest, use what it provides, and try to protect it from aggressive commercial exploitation.
- Article
- Article
What Black women do when the NHS fails them
Sabrina-Maria Anderson explores misogynoir – hatred of Black women – within the NHS, and how women like her are consequently turning to other sources of medical support.
- Article
- Article
On contagion
Reading descriptions of the way humans become infested by parasitic flatworms, Daisy Lafarge experienced painful physical symptoms. Perhaps the very creature she was studying had invaded her body.
- Article
- Article
Revelations of blindness in the Middle Ages
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
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.
- Article
- Article
When contemporary dance meets dyspraxia
Discover why a rare neurological condition meant an enthusiastic club-night dancer struggled with formal dance classes. And how persisting with those classes paid off.