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Booze and bad behaviour
Our love of alcohol is like a party that’s lasted nine centuries. But there are signs that the demon drink is losing its appeal.
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Tripping for spiritualism and science
Getting high in the name of religion or creativity has been practised for centuries. Now it seems hallucinogenics could help treat mental illnesses too.
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Fantastic beasts and unnatural history
Find out how a 17th-century compendium of the natural world came to present fantastical beasts –like dragons – as real, living creatures.
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Invisibility
Why do menopausal women feel invisible? Because nobody talks about menopause or because society doesn't value older women?
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Hysteria
Mental health and emotional symptoms are common during menopause, but a long history of dismissing sufferers as 'hysterical women', at the mercy of their emotions has made it much harder to discuss these issues and to get support.
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- Book extract
The history of brainwashing
Is it possible to control what other people think? In this abridged extract from his book ‘Brainwashed’, psychoanalyst and historian Daniel Pick offers us a new history of thought control.
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A history of mindfulness
Matt Drage questions how an ancient religious practice became a secular cure for stress.
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A brief history of ventilation
As ventilators continue to play an important part in helping very ill coronavirus patients, medical historian Dr Lindsey Fitzharris traces their development from the first attempts at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation through centuries of medical crises.
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A history of gestation outside the body
It’s been over 400 years since a Swiss alchemist theorised that foetuses could develop outside the womb. Claire Horn examines incubator technology past and present, and explores the possibilities recent prototypes might bring.
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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.
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The yogi as hermit, warrior, criminal and showman
How the modern world changed the life and reputation of the yogi.
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Yoga gets physical
Modern yoga owes a debt to the physical culture movement that created a world obsessed with health and fitness.
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Vivekananda’s journey
How a young Indian monk’s travels around the world inspired modern yoga.
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Acid and the sexual psychonauts
How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.
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Lovesickness and ‘The Love Thief’
An 11th-century poem of love, lust and possibly gruesome death still resonates today.
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The origins and meanings of pharmacy symbols
What have snakes, unicorns and crocodiles got to do with pharmacies? The history of these modern signs goes back to the Greek gods.
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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.
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Doctors and the English seaside
Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Dangers inside and out
Eimear McBride reflects on the deadly consequences of misogyny in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard and argues why advising women to simply “stay indoors” is wrong.
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Indian botanicals and heritage wars
Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.
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Eugenics and the welfare state
Indy Bhullar explores the ideas of William Beveridge and Richard Titmuss, who were strongly influenced by eugenic thinking, and yet championed the idea of the welfare state.
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Between sickness and health
In early 2020, the subject Will Rees was studying – imaginary illnesses – took on a new relevance as everyone anxiously scanned themselves for Covid symptoms each day. But this kind of self-scrutiny is nothing new, as he reveals.
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Menstruation, magic and moon myths
Why do stories cloaking periods in magic and mystery persist? Pragya Agarwal argues against myth-making and for inclusive menstrual education, grounded in fact.
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Pain and the power of activism
Today, women with endometriosis have more access to better information than ever before. Jaipreet Virdi applauds the shared stories, online communities and self-help books empowering women in pain.
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Words of hope and anger
Author and spoken word poet Penny Pepper remembers her childhood dreams, and speaks out against the barriers society uses to prevent disabled people from fulfilling their potential.