Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events

Stories

  • Article

Conserving Audrey

Elena describes how specially designed storage allows Audrey’s scrapbooks to retain all traces of her creative process, although their intrinsic fragility means deterioration is almost inevitable.

  • Article

Ginger’s role in cures and courtroom battles

Some people will use a dose of ginger to help with hangovers – but it hasn’t always been a friend to the thirsty.

  • Article

Cataloguing Audrey

Work begins in earnest to restore order to the archive Audrey Amiss kept of the minutest happenings in her life. Like detectives, the archivists search for subtle clues to chronology in the mass of materials.

All stories (3)

Images

  • Catharanthus roseus (L.)G.Don Apocynaceae. Madagascar Periwinkle Distribution: Madagascar. It is the source of vincristine and vinblastine, which impair cell multiplication by interfering with microtubule assembly, causing metaphase arrest and are effective medications for leukaemias, lymphomas and some solid tumours. The mortality from childhood leukaemia fell from 100% to 30% once it was introduced - not a drug that could ethically be tested by double-blind trials. These chemicals were initially discovered by investigators in 1958 who were looking for cures for diabetes so tested this plant which was being used in the West Indies to reduce blood sugar levels. There are 70 different alkaloids present in this plant, and some - catharanthine, leurosine sulphate, lochnerine, tetrahydroalstonine, vindoline and vindolinine - lower blood sugar levels. However, the toxicity of this plant is such that this is not a plant to try at home for diabetic management. The vincristine content of the plant is 0.0003%, so two kilograms of leaf are required to produce sufficient vincristine for a single course of treatment for a child (6gm). Fortunately it is a vigorous weed and easy to grow in the tropics. Artificial synthesis has now been achieved. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • A sugar cane plant (Saccharum officinarum), its flower and sections of stem, bordered by six scenes illustrating its use by man. Coloured lithograph, c. 1840.
  • A sugar cane plant (Saccharum officinarum), its flower and sections of stem, bordered by six scenes illustrating its use by man. Coloured lithograph, c. 1840.
  • Fat : helping you choose good fat over bad / Tesco.
  • Fat : helping you choose good fat over bad / Tesco.
  • Fat : helping you choose good fat over bad / Tesco.
  • Fat : helping you choose good fat over bad / Tesco.
  • No added sugar : why we never add sugar to Whole Earth products / Whole Earth Foods Ltd.
  • No added sugar : why we never add sugar to Whole Earth products / Whole Earth Foods Ltd.
  • A trio of quack doctors attending to Britannia: the Earl of Bute with an ass's head blindfolds a woman who is vomiting into a bowl held by Louis XV as a baboon: Tobias Smollett takes her pulse;while Henry Fox approaches her with a clyster-pipe; representing the loss of British assets to France in the Treaty of Paris. Etching attributed to Paul Sandby, 1762.
All images (10)

Catalogue

All works (6)