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Surviving as a working-class woman without work
An enforced period of unemployment was extremely tough for Claire Hart, a working-class woman with a strong work ethic. Here she describes her feelings during this difficult time.
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Between sickness and health
In early 2020, the subject Will Rees was studying – imaginary illnesses – took on a new relevance as everyone anxiously scanned themselves for Covid symptoms each day. But this kind of self-scrutiny is nothing new, as he reveals.
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Guerrilla public health
From safe-use guides to needle exchange schemes, Harry Shapiro reflects on 40 years of drug harm reduction in the UK.
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The birth of Britain's National Health Service
Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.
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How the mental health system fails Black people
Accessing mental healthcare as a Black woman can be a challenging experience. Rianna Walcott shares her story, alongside those of three other women, to reveal the barriers she faced.
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Thomas Sankara and the stomachs that made themselves heard
Thomas Sankara’s vision to transform farming and health in Burkina Faso turned to dust with his assassination. Perry Blankson highlights the considerable achievements of Sankara’s brief span in power.
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The work of wet-nursing
Many of us know that in the past, babies were sometimes nourished by wet-nurses. But, perhaps surprisingly, the practice continues today – and the milk recipients are not only babies.
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Epidemic threats and racist legacies
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.
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Desperate housewives and suburban neurosis
Discover how a pioneering health centre replaced housewives’ supposedly empty home lives with a social space that encouraged healthy child rearing.
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Coronavirus, Crohn’s and me
Clinically vulnerable to COVID-19, Lucia Osborne-Crowley has been shut in her flat for months. With her chronic condition transformed into a life-threatening one, she explores what the pandemic is revealing about living with long-term illness.
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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.
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Disability, education and prejudice
In the 1960s and 1970s, thalidomide survivors had to fight for a proper education. If they weren’t brought up in institutions, they were often viewed as objects of curiosity, encountering verbal and sometimes physical abuse, both at school and in the world beyond.
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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.
- 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.
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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.
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Intelligence testing, race and eugenics
Specious ideas and assumptions about intelligence that were born during the great flourishing of eugenics well over 100 years ago still inform the British education system today, as Nazlin Bhimani reveals.
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Stigma, schizophrenia and being transgender
When he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, Ashley McFord-Allister discovered that the medical world will not continue gender confirmation treatment while treating a mental health condition. Here he exposes the prejudice behind this attitude.
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Queer cafés and gay mylk
Holly Regan explores queer London spaces where the alternative – oat milk – is the norm for the communities gathering there.
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Yoga adapts to time and place
A yoga teacher in 1930s India inspired today’s transnational practice with his spectacular fusion of tradition and innovation.
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Care, creativity and a connected world
Find out about the challenges Wellcome Collection has faced during the last very demanding year.
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NHS strikes and the decade of discontent
When the social unrest of the 1970s spread to the NHS, dissatisfied staff challenged the status quo for the first time in quarter of a century.
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Sun salutations and yoga synthesis in India
Surya namaskars, or sun salutations, have a long history in South Asia, but their place at the heart of modern yoga is more recent.
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Rag mags and monthly issues: Five period zines to stop you seeing red
Using humour, personal experience and political activism to explore the bloody reality of menstruation.
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Surviving fatness
It took time for LMM to discover that being fat and poor are mutually exclusive. Here she describes resisting fatphobia by being visible and leaning in to the stereotype.
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The girl with no name
When a now anonymous teenager sold her tooth for transplant, she couldn’t have predicted that she’d end up at the heart of a troubling story about 18th-century beauty ideals.