- Article
- Article
Getting the measure of pain
In the 20th century doctors tried to find a way to measure pain. But even when ‘objective’ measures were rejected, an accurate understanding of another’s pain remained frustratingly elusive.
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- Article
The secret hystery of a womb
A Renaissance image of a caesarean section inspired Anna Blundy to recount the story of a hidden, perhaps mysterious part of her body.
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- Article
The poor child’s nurse
Charming family scenes in Victorian ads for children’s medicines were at odds with some of the dangerous ingredients they contained.
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- Article
Tragic artists and their all-consuming passions
Does having a debilitating disease help or hinder creative genius?
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- Article
Drugs in Victorian Britain
Many common remedies were taken throughout the 19th century, with more people than ever using them. What was the social and cultural context of this development?
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- Article
Surviving a flesh-eating disease
Nearly dying from a skin infection gave Scott Neill a chance to start again after an early life marked by grief and depression.
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- Article
Dying at home and the doctor’s role
Our anonymous GP talks about the bittersweet rewards of supporting a patient when he chose to die at home.
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- Article
Blood
Discover the history, mythology and taboos around blood and menopause, and hear from some contemporary voices about their experiences of periods and the onset of menopause.
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- Article
Fashion for an unruly body
One weekend, just before an operation to correct her scoliosis, Rosalind Jana stopped trying to hide her body. Read how those two days helped her step into the future.
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- Article
The mystery of the malignant brain
In 1884 a neurologist successfully used a patient’s symptoms, plus a new kind of map, to locate a brain tumour. Discover how his best-laid plans for treatment worked out.
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- Article
The blight of the ballooning blood vessels
In 1817 an emergency operation on a London porter was hailed a ‘success’ despite the patient’s swift demise. Find out how this case became a landmark in vascular surgery.
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- Article
Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug
Today, cocaine has a very poor public image as one of the causes of crime and violence. But for the Victorians it was welcomed as the saviour of modern surgery.
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- Article
The leukaemia diagnosis I didn’t see coming
Treatment for leukaemia kept journalist Hannah Partos in isolation, like the female prisoner whose image inspired her to write this piece.
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- Article
A quick guide to drugs, the brain and brain chemistry
Discover some of the major chemicals that govern activity in our brains, how they work, and why certain drugs have the effects they do.
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- Article
We need less ‘sickle cell warriors’ and more allies
Rejecting the epithet “warrior”, Cheryl Telfer describes the pervasive effect sickle cell disease has on her life, and calls for more people to donate blood to help sicklers.
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- Article
Rethinking the placebo effect
The placebo effect has long been harnessed for both legitimate and fraudulent use, but we’re only just discovering how and why our bodies respond positively to dummy drugs, as Anjuli Sharma reveals.
- Book extract
- Book extract
A dispatch from the frontiers of man and machine
Harry Parker’s life changed overnight when he stepped on a bomb and lost his legs. He argues that being an amputee doesn’t make him an outlier; we are all hybrid.
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- Article
Guerrilla public health
From safe-use guides to needle exchange schemes, Harry Shapiro reflects on 40 years of drug harm reduction in the UK.