- Article
- Article
Picturing mental health
Ron Hampshire created artworks while resident at Netherne psychiatric hospital. What can we learn from them?
- Photo story
- Photo story
Faces of the NHS
Meet some of the exceptional workers whose careers span the seven decades of the NHS. Their portraits and words reveal their passion for medicine and for taking care of people.
- In pictures
- In pictures
A history of medical masks
The now ubiquitous face mask was first used by artists working with toxic substances. See how its design and use has evolved over centuries of plagues and pathogens.
- Article
- Article
Native Americans through the 19th-century lens
The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The art of memory
Our ability to recall facts and experiential detail helps us understand, navigate, and make predictions about the world. Julia Nurse explores some of the techniques we have developed to help us to remember.
- Article
- Article
Audrey and her family
In working on Audrey Amiss’s archive, Elena is getting closer to understanding her. But the way her niece and nephew remember Audrey adds essential detail to the picture.
- Article
- Article
Diagnosing OCD in the past
Mining the writings of and about famous historical figures, retrospective psychologists try to diagnose their mental health problems. But, inevitably, partial evidence is open to misinterpretation.
- In pictures
- In pictures
How Mills & Boon made medicine romantic
‘Doctor-nurse’ romances are a hugely popular trope. Agnes Arnold-Forster explores their history and surprisingly nuanced depictions of womanhood, hospitals and the welfare state.
- Article
- Article
What our facial hair says about us
Five bearded and moustachioed men choose five hirsute archive images to help them reflect on the way facial hair is linked with personality and identity.
- Article
- Article
Mapping the body
These intricate anatomical drawings show how Ayurveda practitioners have explored the human body and how it works.
- Article
- Article
Pain, politics and the power of photography
Art historian Giulia Smith explains what she most admires in the work of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, and how their approach makes illness political.
- Article
- 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.
- Article
- Article
‘Jessy’, a film about cerebral palsy
How the 1950s British film industry portrayed this disease.
- Article
- Article
The indelible harm caused by conversion therapy
With first-hand evidence from two powerful testimonies, neurologist Jules Montague explores the destructive history of conversion therapy, a punitive treatment designed to ‘cure’ people of homosexuality.
- Article
- Article
Photographs as evidence of gender identity and sexuality
Intriguing photographs from sexologists’ archives suggest they could have helped people explore their gender identity and sexuality.
- 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
The shocking ‘treatment’ to make lesbians straight
Being a lesbian has never been a crime in the UK, but 50 years ago, some psychologists experimented with treatments to try to ‘cure’ women of their orientation. Find out what this involved.
- Article
- Article
Doris Day blows against
Dodie Bellamy remembers a heady summer watching Doris Day grimace and gust in vintage movies, her expressive exhalations changing her onscreen world with a puff.
- 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
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.
- Book extract
- Book extract
The science of why things spread
From deadly pandemics to viral tweets, Adam Kucharski explores what makes something contagious.
- Photo story
- Photo story
Transitioning and the family album
“It’s really hard to describe to people how you know you’re a man when those ways of describing masculinity to me aren’t true. You need to find your own.”
- Article
- Article
Surviving fatness
It took time for LMM to discover that being fat and poor are mutually exclusive. Here she describes resisting fatphobia by being visible and leaning in to the stereotype.
- Article
- Article
A journey through slime
Did you know that slime cells signal to each other and seek out multiple partners? Welcome to bath time with Abi Palmer – and some revolting yet awe-inspiring grey slime.
- Photo story
- Photo story
A portrait of me with my mother
A series of portraits with stand-in mothers helped Camilla Greenwell to process her grief, and then to question whether our photograph albums are ever really honest.