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  • 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.

  • Article

The ‘undesirable epileptic’

Abused in her marriage for being 'a sick woman', Aparna Nair looked to history to make sense of the response to her epilepsy. She discovered how centuries of fear and discrimination were often endorsed by science and legislation.

  • Article

The island of unclaimed bodies

In New York, those who live and die on the extreme edges of society are buried on an isolated island, often forgotten and unmourned. But recent legal changes aim to reduce stigma and restore their dignity.

  • Article

Tripping for spiritualism and science

Getting high in the name of religion or creativity has been practised for centuries. Now it seems hallucinogenics could help treat mental illnesses too.

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Images

  • A procession of publicans and a beggar following the coffin of Madam Geneva; attacking the Act preventing distillers from retailing or selling gin to unlicensed premises. Engraving, 1751.
  • Policemen apprehend a pickpocket taking a license from a publican; representing the value to the government of publicans' licenses. Chromolithograph by T. Merry, 1890, after himself.
  • A triumphant American slave woman representing quassia (ingredient in acoholic drinks) is carried aloft by two brewers; representing the outcry against a tax on private brewing (?). Etching by J. Gillray, 1806.
  • John Coakley Lettsom, physician, with his family, in the garden of Grove Hill, Camberwell.
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