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Stories

  • Article

Dealing with the dead after a nuclear attack

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

  • Article

Why we no longer keep our dead at home

Today in the UK we rarely sit with, touch, or perhaps even see our loved ones after they’ve died. Past practices were very different and, Claire Cock-Starkey argues, were more helpful for those grieving.

  • In pictures

The smell of saintliness

It’s the tenth century and your local ascetic has died. Remarkably, his body emits a sweet, pleasant smell, and fragrant oils instead of foul liquids and odours. Read on to find out how this could be.

  • Article

The food diary and the power of unhealth

Food diaries might appear to present a strictly factual record of dietary choices, but what they don’t include is the more revealing story, as Virginia Hartley suggests.

All stories (93)

Images

  • Disposal of the dead, Iron Age.
  • Wellcome museum, primitive medicine: disposal of the dead
  • Wellcome museum, primitive medicine: disposal of the dead
  • Disposal of dead bodies during the cholera epidemic of 1835 in Palermo. Lithograph by G. Castagnola.
  • Disposal of the dead, under police supervision during a cholera epidemic in Japan. Reproduction of drawing by Meisenbach after C. Fripp.
  • The Book of the dead / [edited by A. Mayer].
  • A miracle; the raising of the dead. Etching by M. Bianchi, 1894.
  • The Chair of Grace, God the Father presenting the dead Christ. Facsimile of an engraving.
  • The sacrament of the Roman Catholic church: burial of the dead. Etching after B. Picart.
  • Burial of the dead in the graveyard of a parish church. Etching by James Taylor.
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Events

  • Gallery tour

Dance of the Dead Tour

Information Point
Past
  • Discussion

Plastics in Medicine

Viewing Room
Past

Part of Library Insights

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