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Tragic artists and their all-consuming passions
Does having a debilitating disease help or hinder creative genius?
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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.
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What the nose doesn’t know
Losing her sense of smell for over a year motivated Stephanie Howard-Smith to sniff out the history of treatments for this unsettling condition.
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Native Americans through the 19th-century lens
The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.
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Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high
The rapid, short-lived high we get from whippets, reefers and vapes can be accompanied by long-term health consequences. The search is on for safer ways to get stoned.
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Exceptional talent and the trouble with IQ tests
Is a high IQ really a mark of genius, or does something else explain the exceptional?
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Homes for the hives of industry
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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Thousands of years of women’s pain
Even in the 21st century, women with severe monthly pain find their suffering minimised or dismissed by the medical profession. Such pain is seen as simply a natural part of being female.
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The quest to breed gifted children
If you had the chance, would you choose a genius baby?
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Political brilliance and the power of self-promotion
How do you convince people you’re exceptional? Meet the ultimate self-styled genius.
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Transforming the decorative into dissent
Discover how embroidered messages by two ‘troublesome’ women in 19th-century asylums are mirrored in the therapeutic quilting work of writer Rachel May.