Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
14 results
  • Article
  • Article

Chillies and the trouble with Scoville

| Danny Birchall

Measuring the heat of these peppers can leave you a little lukewarm.

  • Article
  • Article

How to be poor and happy

| Em LedgerCamilla Greenwell

Money, security, self-sufficiency and charitable giving have long been linked to happiness. But what if you’re working class?

  • Article
  • Article

Lonely bodies are hungry for more than turkey

| Dr Fay Bound Alberti

At Christmas, many charities provide dinners for homeless or isolated people. Food is central to festive celebrations, but it can also satisfy our hunger for belonging and community.

  • Article
  • Article

Religion and mental health

| Jamila PereiraMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

At a time of extreme distress, Jamila Pereira found that the faith she had relied on was failing her. Here she describes how she found other ways to begin healing and finding happiness.

  • Article
  • Article

The poetic language of health

| James MorlandPippa Dyrlaga

When his doctors could only offer phone consultations, James Morland turned to poetry to make sense of the medical terms describing his symptoms and test results.

  • Article
  • Article

Losing touch

| Agnese ReginaldoAisha Young

In these pandemic times, when touch has become taboo, Agnese Reginaldo explores the importance of physical contact to our wellbeing.

  • 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

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

Selling sex and sacrificing safety

| AbigailJessa Fairbrother

Sex workers who report crimes against them can face a “what do you expect?” attitude. But one organisation is working to protect vulnerable people in the sex industry.

  • Article
  • Article

Performing my disability

| Caroline ButterwickKimberley Burrows

Caroline Butterwick explores the idea of disability as performative, and the pressure to act out what we think others expect.

  • Article
  • Article

When you can’t return home

| Gail TolleyMaria Rivans

Migrants and refugees cannot choose to return home, so homesickness becomes a profound and long-lasting feeling. This powerful force infuses migrant cultures, and is rarely given the serious attention it warrants.

  • Article
  • Article

Dress and the magic of touch

| Shahidha BariMaryam Wahid

Fashion, of course, is largely about appearance, but the feeling of clothes on your skin is a complex sensory experience. Shahidha Bari contemplates the human connections in the business of creating and wearing clothes.

  • Article
  • Article

‘Jessy’, a film about cerebral palsy

| Anthony McKay

How the 1950s British film industry portrayed this disease.

  • Article
  • Article

Active pensioners, blooming gardens

| Kate WilkinsonLaurindo Feliciano

To reach your 70s with over 300,000 Twitter followers or running a music festival is not the stereotypical image of retirement. But does this energetic engagement with life equal happiness?