- Article
- Article
Booze and bad behaviour
Our love of alcohol is like a party that’s lasted nine centuries. But there are signs that the demon drink is losing its appeal.
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- Article
Fantastic beasts and unnatural history
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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- Article
Deadly doses and the hardest of hard drugs
The invention of the modern hypodermic syringe meant we could get high – or accidentally die – faster than before. Find out how this medical breakthrough was adapted for deadly uses.
- Article
- Article
The yogi as hermit, warrior, criminal and showman
How the modern world changed the life and reputation of the yogi.
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- 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.
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- Article
The Ladies of Llangollen
As we celebrate LGBT History Month, Sarah Bentley explores the relationship between the two 18th-century women known as the Ladies of Llangollen.
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- Article
Duelling doctors
An enduring enthusiasm for 18th-century gentlemen to defend their ‘honour’ by duelling placed doctors in a delicate position. Specially when they faced being shot themselves.
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- Article
The complex longing for home
It could be mild, an almost poetic longing. Or it could be visceral, deep, an overwhelming feeling that eats into your everyday life. Come with Gail Tolley as she introduces a deep dive into homesickness.
- Article
- Article
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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- Article
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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- Article
How do advertisers get inside our heads?
Vance Packard exposed techniques of mass manipulation developed by 1950s advertisers that are still at work today in the age of big data.
- Article
- Article
Illuminated manuscripts, illuminating medicines
From rare bugs to exorbitantly priced plant parts, find out more about the artistic and medical uses of pigments from the past.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life
The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.