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12 results
  • Article
  • Article

Epidemic threats and racist legacies

| Jacob Steere-WilliamsDark Matter

Epidemiology is the systematic, data-driven study of health and disease in populations. But as historian Jacob Steere-Williams suggests, this most scientific of fields emerged in the 19th century imbued with a doctrine of Western imperialism – a legacy that continues to influence how we talk about disease.

  • Article
  • Article

Mask, ritual and fertility

| Chimwemwe PhiriSteven Pocock

Today many of us learn about fertility, conception and pregnancy online. But that wasn’t always the way. Discover how masks and rituals played an important educational role.

  • Article
  • Article

Queer cafés and gay mylk

| Holly ReganCat O’Neil

Holly Regan explores queer London spaces where the alternative – oat milk – is the norm for the communities gathering there.

  • Article
  • Article

Pain and the power of activism

| Jaipreet VirdiAnne Howeson

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Rag mags and monthly issues: Five period zines to stop you seeing red

| Nicola CookLoesja Vigour

Using humour, personal experience and political activism to explore the bloody reality of menstruation.

  • Article
  • Article

Milk trails round Euston

| Esther LesliePeople’s MuseumBenjamin Gilbert

Where cows once grazed near Wellcome Collection in London, baristas now froth their milk. Esther Leslie uncovers Euston’s dairy-based urban history.

  • Article
  • Article

Diagnosed bipolar, prescribed lithium

| Laura Grace SimpkinsAlice BoydMatjaž Krivic

In the first part of a series looking into lithium, Laura Grace Simpkins recounts the beginning of her troubled relationship with this mysterious drug.

  • Article
  • Article

The law of periodicity for menstruation

| Lalita Kaplish

Dr Edward Clarke's Law of Periodicity claimed that females who were educated alongside their male peers were developing their minds at the expense of their reproductive organs.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Historical ways to hang on to your hair

| Maisie Jenkins

Could upper-class hair-hygiene regimes cause baldness, or does hair health depend on a blast of deadly mercury? Maisie Jenkins scours the archives for historic follicle care.

  • Article
  • Article

How to thrive in lockdown

| Gareth BerlinerCarrie Ravenscroft

Gareth Berliner shares how being a Disabled person has given him the resilience and motivation to find a new creative challenge during lockdown.

  • Article
  • Article

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.

  • Article
  • Article

The hell of hay fever

| David JesudasonSteven Pocock

After years suffering in silence, David Jesudason finds speaking out about his pollen allergy gives him hope for a future where his hay-fever symptoms are under control.