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120 results
  • Article
  • Article

Finding solidarity in arachnophobia

| Izzie PriceSteven Pocock

Arachnophobia is very different from just disliking spiders. Izzie Price shares the reality of having the phobia, and explores its likely origins.

  • Article
  • Article

Plant portraits

| Julia Nurse

The beautiful and mysterious illustrations in medieval herbals convey a wealth of knowledge about the plants they portray.

  • Article
  • Article

Finding out where my lithium comes from

| Laura Grace SimpkinsMatjaž Krivic

The origins of the lithium Laura Grace Simpkins swallows daily are unclear. If we don’t know the provenance of our pills, how can we make informed decisions about them?

  • Article
  • Article

The healing power of the physic garden

| Iona Glen

Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.

  • Article
  • Article

Guide dogs or good dogs from the Middle Ages

| Jude SealSteven Pocock

Medieval illustrations often show blind people, sometimes with dogs. But working out whether these were actually guide dogs involves a mix of detailed detective work and expert speculation.

  • Article
  • Article

Living in limbo when a loved one is missing

| Bev ThomasCamilla Greenwell

When someone goes missing, loved ones are thrown into a state akin to constant grieving; waiting for news, living in hope. Novelist Bev Thomas describes how they try to cope and carry on.

  • Article
  • Article

Demanding a diagnosis for invisible pain

| Jaipreet VirdiAnne Howeson

After dozens of hospital visits and handfuls of painkillers, a plethora of scans and tests bring diagnosis closer for Jaipreet Virdi.

  • Article
  • Article

Illness and the influence of the stars

| Taras YoungSteven Pocock

Could alien germs from space have caused major pandemics across the world? Taras Young investigates the ideas of a few unconventional scientists who believe this to be the case.

  • Article
  • Article

Revelations of blindness in the Middle Ages

| Jude Seal

Medieval texts, from Islamic medical treatises to Christian books of miracles, reveal surprisingly varied and complex experiences of blindness. But when medieval scholar Jude Seal experienced visual impairment themselves, they gained an even deeper understanding of the lives they were studying.

  • Article
  • Article

Finding my body through the wilderness

| Jennifer NealFaye Heller

Writer Jennifer Neal used vigorous exercise classes to try and heal herself in the years following an assault. But it was only while hiking outdoors that she found true strength.

  • Article
  • Article

The secrets your teeth hold

| Michael A Berthaume

Discover how innocuous-looking human teeth hold a wealth of hidden information about our diet, health and evolution.

  • Article
  • Article

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

  • Comic
  • Comic

Phone

| Rob Bidder

Is your phone a source of comfort or a gateway to melancholy during this crisis?

  • Article
  • Article

Fantastic beasts and unnatural history

| Cassidy Phillips

Find out how a 17th-century compendium of the natural world came to present fantastical beasts –like dragons – as real, living creatures.

  • Article
  • Article

The family food of a kebab van man

| Melek ErdalAnna Keville Joyce

Melek Erdal celebrates the physical and mental resilience of her father Yusuf, forged by isolation and dislocation, and reinforced by the distinctive cuisine of his home country, Turkey.

  • Article
  • Article

Restoring disorder to ‘The Book of Disquiet’

| Helen Babbs

Printer Tim Hopkins explains what making an extraordinary new edition of Fernando Pessoa’s book revealed about both the text and the mind.

  • Article
  • Article

What Black women do when the NHS fails them

| Sabrina-Maria AndersonMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

Sabrina-Maria Anderson explores misogynoir – hatred of Black women – within the NHS, and how women like her are consequently turning to other sources of medical support.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

The trouble with absinthe

| David Jesudason

Famed for inducing “green fairy” hallucinations, absinthe has been simultaneously lauded for its medicinal properties and condemned as the source of debasement and debauchery.

  • Article
  • Article

Lindsey Fitzharris’s prescription for writing

| Jennifer Trent Staves

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘The Butchering Art’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

  • Article
  • Article

How electromagnetic therapy inspired me

| Sarah James

Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.

  • Article
  • Article

Spiritual joy

| Dr Emma PercyJem Clancy

Spiritual joy can be a source of strength. Like the optimistic Pollyanna, there’s a lot to be said for finding reasons to rejoice, even in adversity.

  • Article
  • Article

Doctor in the house

| Ishani Kar-Purkayastha

A house is not always a home – sometimes it’s impermanent, impersonal. But other aspects of the itinerant life can be the source of a sense of home.

  • Article
  • Article

Cloves to mull, mask and numb

| Helen Babbs

Sweet, pungent, warm, woody: cloves smell and taste like Christmas. But there’s much more to this spice than that.

  • Article
  • Article

The housing that gives hope to refugees

| George KafkaMamadou

A safe place of one’s own can be a source of healing and hope. George Kafka reports on two Athens-based projects helping displaced people by putting housing first.

  • Article
  • Article

Meredith Wadman’s prescription for writing

| Jennifer Trent Staves

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘The Vaccine Race’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.