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16 results
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  • Article

The meanings of hurt

| Alanna SkuseSteven Pocock

In the early modern period, gruesome incidents of self-castration and other types of self-injury garnished the literature of the time. Alanna Skuse explores the messages these wounds conveyed.

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Aphasia and drawing elephants

| Thomas Parkinson

When Thomas Parkinson investigated the history of “speech science”, he discovered an unexpected link between empire, elephants and aphasia.

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Getting the measure of pain

| Jaipreet VirdiAnne Howeson

In the 20th century doctors tried to find a way to measure pain. But even when ‘objective’ measures were rejected, an accurate understanding of another’s pain remained frustratingly elusive.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Eating their own kind

In his grisly history of cannibalism, zoologist Bill Schutt asks what drives an animal to feast on its own flesh and blood.

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Dealing with the dead after a nuclear attack

| Taras Young

Cold War-era predictions of death on a vast scale became routine. But the British authorities were less prepared to dispose of the bodies.

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The current that kills

| Ruth Garde

In the 19th century, electricity held life in the balance, with the power to execute – or reanimate.

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Pain and the power of touch

| Fiona MurphyCamilla Greenwell

As a new physiotherapist, Fiona Murphy quickly learned that her patients’ pain was unpredictable and very personal. But using the right words became the key to helping them.

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Coleridge’s hypochondria

| Mike JayNaki Narh

An intense focus on his own bodily sensations led poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to self-medicate with narcotics. But this fascination also put Coleridge ahead of the medical sensibilities of his day.

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Electrical epilepsy and the EEG Test

| Aparna NairTracy Satchwill

The EEG (electroencephalograph) literally electrified the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. But for Aparna Nair the dreaded EEG tests of her adolescence were a painful ordeal.

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Deadly doses and the hardest of hard drugs

| Stevyn Colgan

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.

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Sick of the theatre

| Michael Regnier

What makes the stage a good place to share real-life experiences of ill health?

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Duelling doctors

| Russell Moul

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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Synaesthesia, or when senses overlap

| Lydia Ruffles

What’s it like to see heartbeats, taste Tube stations or hear paintings?

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Active pensioners, blooming gardens

| Kate WilkinsonLaurindo Feliciano

To reach your 70s with over 300,000 Twitter followers or running a music festival is not the stereotypical image of retirement. But does this energetic engagement with life equal happiness?

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Yoga adapts to time and place

| Lalita Kaplish

A yoga teacher in 1930s India inspired today’s transnational practice with his spectacular fusion of tradition and innovation.

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  • Book extract

Tracing the roots of our fears and fixations

| Kate SummerscaleTim Robinson

Kate Summerscale explores the history of our anxieties and compulsions, and the new phobias and manias that are always emerging.