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46 results
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Sex in graphic novels

| Stephen Lowther

Sex and sexuality have long been explored in the history of the graphic novel.

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Sex work, stigma and whorephobia

| Matt Valentine-ChaseJessa Fairbrother

Like everyone, sex workers sometimes need medical or mental health support. But shame and stigma seriously affect attitudes and access.

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John Walter on ‘Alien Sex Club’

| John Walter

I’m a painter, but I make worlds.

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The bishop’s profitable sex workers

| Dr Kate Lister

How did the Church rake in revenue from 14th-century sex regulations? Kate Lister explores a bishop’s lucrative rulebook.

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The metamorphosis of masturbation

| Dr Kate Lister

Throughout history, medics and campaigners have tried to stamp out masturbation – but is modern science transforming its reputation?

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Diagnosing OCD in the past

| Joanne EdgeThomas S G Farnetti

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.

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Nymphomania and hypersexuality in women and men

| Taryn Cain

The history of nymphomania is closely bound with society's views on women and their sexuality.

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Soil health and dairy farming in the UK

| Angela HuiCat O’Neil

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.

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Fake news and the flu

| Hannah MawdsleyThomas S G Farnetti

Discover how history shows that fake news could play a deadly role – by generating potentially lethal misinformation during a future pandemic.

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History of condoms from animal to rubber

| Taryn Cain

Come on a journey from the first recorded condoms in the 16th century to the modern female condoms in the 1990s – and everything in between.

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The healing power of breathing

| Effie Webb

The healing powers of different breathing methods are said to help with a range of health challenges, from asthma to PTSD. Effie Webb traces their spiritual origins and explores the modern proliferation of breathwork therapies.

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Public health campaigns and the ‘threat’ of disability

| Aparna Nair

By continuing to represent disability as the feared outcome of disease, public health campaigns help to perpetuate prejudice against disabled people.

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Remote diagnosis from wee to the Web

| Christine RoSteven Pocock

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.

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The stranger who started an epidemic

| Anna Faherty

New Orleans, 1853. James McGuigan arrives in the port city and succumbs to yellow fever.

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The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists

| Anna Faherty

Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.

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The pill, autism and me

| Catriona ReidNatasha Almeida

Realising that her contraceptive was having a negative effect on her mental health, Catriona Reid saw her concerns dismissed by doctors. As an autistic woman on the pill, she was not an anomaly, but has often been made to feel like one.

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How tuberculosis became a test case for eugenic theory

| Hannah CornishGergo Varga

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.

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What is hysteria?

| Sarah Jaffray

Hysteria has long been associated with fanciful myths, but its history reveals how it has been used to control women’s behaviour and bodies

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Coronavirus, Crohn’s and me

| Lucia Osborne-CrowleyThomas S G Farnetti

Clinically vulnerable to COVID-19, Lucia Osborne-Crowley has been shut in her flat for months. With her chronic condition transformed into a life-threatening one, she explores what the pandemic is revealing about living with long-term illness.

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The secret sting of cystitis

| Agnes Arnold-ForsterMari Fouz

Agnes Arnold-Forster recounts her experiences of cystitis, explaining how this illness intersects with sexism, shame, and stigma from medical professionals.

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It’s getting mighty crowded

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

Mid-20th-century population-density research on mice produced a whiskered apocalypse, predicted to become the fate of humans too. But perhaps a more compassionate approach could fend this off.

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What the nose doesn’t know

| Stephanie Howard-SmithSteven Pocock

Losing her sense of smell for over a year motivated Stephanie Howard-Smith to sniff out the history of treatments for this unsettling condition.

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The work of wet-nursing

| Alev ScottVicky Scott

Many of us know that in the past, babies were sometimes nourished by wet-nurses. But, perhaps surprisingly, the practice continues today – and the milk recipients are not only babies.

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Female masturbation and the perils of pleasure

| Dr Kate Lister

Dr Kate Lister exposes the brutal 19th-century ‘cures’ for women who indulged in masturbation.

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Rethinking the placebo effect

| Anjuli SharmaSteven Pocock

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.