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32 results
  • Article
  • Article

The unexpected parallels between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wellcome Collection

| Russell Dornan

With the news of a sequel in development, Russell Dornan explores parallels between ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and Wellcome Collection.

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The rise and fall of a medical mesmerist

Uncover the fascinating story of the doctor who popularised hypnotism as a medical technique, and could name Dickens among his famous friends.

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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.

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The birth of the public museum

| Elissavet Ntoulia

The first public museums evolved from wealthy collectors’ cabinets of curiosities and were quickly recognised as useful vehicles for culture.

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Would you like to buy a unicorn?

| Cassidy Phillips

The story behind why somebody tried to sell Henry Wellcome a unicorn head in 1928.

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A symbol of a lost homeland

| Yasmeen Abdel MajeedJacqueline Reem Salloum

The story of one protective amulet from Palestine reveals a complex tale. Encompassing the personal history of an influential doctor and collector, it provides a window onto dispossession and exile, and the painful repercussions that are still felt today.

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The making of ‘Quacks’

| Helen Babbs

How do you create a medical comedy that’s authentic and laugh-out-loud funny?

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The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria

| Natasha Ruiz-GómezKathleen Arundell

A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.

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Mapping the body

These intricate anatomical drawings show how Ayurveda practitioners have explored the human body and how it works.

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Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination

| Mark Honigsbaum

The Black Death, AIDS and Ebola outbreaks are part of our collective cultural memory, but the Spanish flu outbreak has not been.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the mind of Ayurvedic Man’s curator, Bárbara Rodriguez Muñoz

| Gwendolyn Smith

The choices a curator makes – what goes in? what stays out? why? – are often as fascinating as the exhibition itself.

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Found items

| Paul HornThomas S G Farnetti

Books leave their traces in our minds, but we leave traces of ourselves in books too, as these fascinating items found inside old works show.

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Doctors and the English seaside

| Jane Darcy

Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.

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Conserving Audrey

| Elena Carter

Elena describes how specially designed storage allows Audrey’s scrapbooks to retain all traces of her creative process, although their intrinsic fragility means deterioration is almost inevitable.

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Photographs as evidence of gender identity and sexuality

| Dr Jana Funke

Intriguing photographs from sexologists’ archives suggest they could have helped people explore their gender identity and sexuality.

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Audrey in the world

| Elena Carter

As the collection is fully catalogued, the archive is opened up to the public. A feature film about Audrey premieres, and Audrey gets her own Wikipedia page, so people can learn about her. For archivist Elena, it’s time to step back.

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Native Americans through the 19th-century lens

| Allison C Meier

The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.

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Why the world needs collectors

| Anna Faherty

Those who collect play an important role as “facilitators of curiosity”, says Anna Faherty.

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Homes for the hives of industry

| Emily Sargent

By building workers’ villages, industry titans demonstrated both philanthropy and control. Employees’ health improved, while rulebooks told them how to live ideal lives.

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The food diary and the power of unhealth

| Virginia HartleyAnna Keville Joyce

Food diaries might appear to present a strictly factual record of dietary choices, but what they don’t include is the more revealing story, as Virginia Hartley suggests.

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Sharing Nature: Over the rainbow

| Helen Babbs

Here’s your choice of the most meaningful nature photo on the theme of health.

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Book design, dissected

| Gwendolyn Smith

Gwen Smith talks to art director Peter Dyer about imagery, colour, type and staying true to the pages within.

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Getting under the skin

| Taryn Cain

Before the invention of X-ray in 1895 there was really only one way to accurately study the human body, and that was to cut it open.

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Dirt, disease and the Inspector of Nuisances

| Kristen den Hartog

In the days when ‘bad air’ was thought to spread disease, dozens of Inspectors of Nuisances ceaselessly struggled against the perils of dirt – both visible and invisible.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the mind of George Vasey, co-curator of Misbehaving Bodies

| Gwendolyn SmithThomas S G Farnetti

Discover how curator George Vasey honoured the approaches of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, who mischievously subvert clichés around illness and death.