Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events

Stories

  • Article

The men who meddled with nature

The ‘acclimatisation societies’ of the 19th century sought to ‘improve’ on the natural world by releasing non-native species into the wild. The effects were disastrous.

  • Article

Hunting lost plants in botanical collections

A bark specimen at Kew recalls the story of a South American man who harvested the most potent source of the only effective malaria treatment available in the late 1800s. Killed for his work and forgotten by history, Manuel Mamani was a victim of the colonial juggernaut.

  • 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.

  • Article

How nature is defending itself in court

The idea that nature has legal rights is increasingly being taken seriously, but who gets to speak for it? Isabella Kaminski asks how the non-human can be represented within a human-made system.

All stories (15)

Images

  • Map of the world showing distribution of "Primitive Peoples".
  • Kwanyama mother giving enema to her baby boy.
  • Ten African statues, effegies
  • Bronze Benin head, Nigeria
  • Combs, of various origins.
  • Fourteen African statues, effegies
  • Medicine man curing disease, Australia.
  • Three African statues, effegies
  • Sculpted image of Ojibway medicine man sucking out disease.
  • Kwanyama mother giving enema to her baby boy.
All images (138)

Catalogue

All works (143)