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8 results
  • In pictures
  • In pictures

A brief history of contraception

| Milly Newham

From douches to diaphragms, and condoms to caps, discover the wide range of contraception methods people have used over the centuries.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Sex and syphilis

| Dr Kate Lister

Before antibiotics, syphilis unleashed centuries of misery, countered by desperate but largely useless remedies. With the spread of syphilis on the rise, it’s worth remembering what our forebears suffered.

  • Article
  • Article

Sex in graphic novels

| Stephen Lowther

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

  • Article
  • Article

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.

  • Article
  • Article

The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists

| Anna Faherty

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

  • Article
  • Article

The stranger who started an epidemic

| Anna Faherty

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

  • Article
  • Article

Diagnosing the past

| Joanne Edge

Historical texts rarely supply enough detail for a definitive diagnosis, so medical historians need to proceed with caution.

  • Article
  • Article

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.