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12 results
  • Article
  • Article

Eels and feels

| Ruth Garde

For Georgian Londoners, the allure of electric animals was both intellectual and sensual.

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Revelations of blindness in the Middle Ages

| Jude Seal

Medieval texts, from Islamic medical treatises to Christian books of miracles, reveal surprisingly varied and complex experiences of blindness. But when medieval scholar Jude Seal experienced visual impairment themselves, they gained an even deeper understanding of the lives they were studying.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

You, a thousand years ago

| Jack Hartnell

Jack Hartnell argues that, if we were transported into the medieval past, we’d find ourselves somewhere different yet strangely familiar.

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Fantastic beasts and unnatural history

| Cassidy Phillips

Find out how a 17th-century compendium of the natural world came to present fantastical beasts –like dragons – as real, living creatures.

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In the tracks of Derek Jarman’s tears

| E K MyersonBenjamin GilbertGeraint Lewis

Researcher E K Myerson shares her moving encounters with the personal papers of artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman.

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Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages

| Katherine Harvey

The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The castration effect

| Gavin FrancisBenjamin Gilbert

Discover how testosterone – or the lack of it – affects the male body, from eunuch slaves to castrato singers, and on to hormone reduction in modern prostate cancer treatment.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

A history of sex for sale

| Dr Kate ListerSteven Pocock

Kate Lister’s cultural history of the sex trade puts sex workers centre stage. In this extract, she argues why the way we write, think and talk about sex work matters.

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The ancient doctors who refused payment

| Christopher DeCouSteven Pocock

The NHS might only be 70 years old, but the idea of free healthcare goes back to Ancient Greece, when devout doctors provided their services without charge.

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Bleeding healthy

| Julia Nurse

For thousands of years, and in many different cultures, people have practised bloodletting for health and medical reasons. Julia Nurse explains where and when bleeding was used, how it was done, and why.

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Invisibility

| Helen FosterEast Midlands Oral History ArchiveAsma Istwani

Why do menopausal women feel invisible? Because nobody talks about menopause or because society doesn't value older women?

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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.