- Article
- Article
Pain and the power of activism
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
Mixed heritage lesbian couples and fertility treatment
For a lesbian couple who want to share their different cultural heritages with their child, fertility treatment can get very complicated.
- Article
- Article
Maladaptive daydreaming, gender myths and me
Can you daydream too much? Excessive daydreamer Laura Grace Simpkins reflects on studies into “maladaptive daydreaming” and asks why so few fellow dreamers seem to be men.
- Article
- Article
The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria
A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.
- Long read
- Long read
Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction
Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.
- Article
- Article
Parasites and pests from the medieval to the modern
Humans have been reluctant hosts to a plethora of unpleasant parasites for centuries. And medieval evidence shows our modern distaste for these little irritations is just as ancient.
- Article
- Article
Love, longing and tea from the polski sklep
For people of Polish origin in the UK, herbal tea is closely tied to health and shared history. Kasia Tomasiewicz explores her changing relationship to these tea-related cultural habits.
- Article
- Article
Shame, condemnation and conscience
Where does shame comes from and what fuels it? Lucia Osborne-Crowley explores audience, gender and the difference between shame and guilt, asking if either can ever be useful.
- Article
- Article
Reassuring ghosts and haunted houses
Explore the perversely comforting appeal of a ghost in the house.
- Article
- Article
Autism assessments and me
When, as an adult, Mayanne Soret decided to get a formal diagnosis of her autism, she found that the series of assessments had a dishearteningly negative focus, seeming to frame her as a problem.
- Article
- Article
Aphasia and drawing elephants
When Thomas Parkinson investigated the history of “speech science”, he discovered an unexpected link between empire, elephants and aphasia.
- Article
- Article
The pill, autism and me
Realising that her contraceptive was having a negative effect on her mental health, Catriona Reid saw her concerns dismissed by doctors. As an autistic woman on the pill, she was not an anomaly, but has often been made to feel like one.
- Article
- Article
Sacred cows and nutritional purity in India
Apoorva Sripathi explores the complex reasons behind India’s recent boom in all things dairy – beginning with a 1970s Western food-aid programme.
- Article
- Article
Doctors and the English seaside
Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.
- Article
- Article
Shakespeare and the four humours
Blood. Phlegm. Black bile. Yellow bile. The theory of the four humours informed many of Shakespeare's best-known characters, including the phlegmatic Falstaff.
- Article
- Article
Eugenics and the welfare state
Indy Bhullar explores the ideas of William Beveridge and Richard Titmuss, who were strongly influenced by eugenic thinking, and yet championed the idea of the welfare state.
- Article
- Article
The evil eye and social anxiety
The ‘look’ of the evil eye is believed to bring bad luck, illness or even death. This ancient curse might be deliberate, inflicted with an envious glare, or it could be accidental, the result of undue attention or excessive praise.
- Article
- Article
Robinson Crusoe and the morality of solitude
Robinson Crusoe, fiction’s most famous castaway, was certainly isolated, but did he suffer the intrinsically modern affliction of loneliness?
- Article
- Article
Remote romance and the common cold
Getting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.
- Article
- Article
Confusion, guilt, and the battle to breastfeed
Most new mums are told that breast is best. But breastfeeding doesn’t always come as easily or naturally as you might imagine.
- Article
- Article
Colonialism and the origins of skin bleaching
The widespread practice of skin bleaching was heavily influenced by the Western colonisation and slavery of African and South Asian countries. Ngunan Adamu explores this toxic history.
- Photo story
- Photo story
Beautiful bedding and how to die well
When you are unwell, your bed can be both a refuge and a prison. Discover how artist Poppy Nash created a bed-centred artwork inspired by her own chronic illness and depictions of ill health from history.
- Article
- Article
Female masturbation and the perils of pleasure
Dr Kate Lister exposes the brutal 19th-century ‘cures’ for women who indulged in masturbation.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The best place for giving birth
Hospital births are now often seen as the safest option – but this was not always the case. Tania Staras tracks trends in where women gave birth, and what led to the move from home to hospital.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Tracing the roots of our fears and fixations
Kate Summerscale explores the history of our anxieties and compulsions, and the new phobias and manias that are always emerging.