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Stories

  • Long read

Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction

Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.

  • Article

The shocking ‘treatment’ to make lesbians straight

Being a lesbian has never been a crime in the UK, but 50 years ago, some psychologists experimented with treatments to try to ‘cure’ women of their orientation. Find out what this involved.

  • Long read

Our complicated love affair with light

Sunlight is essential, but our relationship with artificial light is less clear cut. It expands what’s possible; it also obscures and polices. In this long read, Lauren Collee pits light against night, and reveals the shady places in between.

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  • Myrtus communis L. Myrtaceae Myrtle Distribution: Europe. Dioscorides (Beck, 2005) recommends the fruit for treating haemoptysis (‘spitting blood’) and cystitis, and, if boiled, he said it made a fine wine. In various forms it was used as a hair dye, for sore eyes, anal and uterine prolapse, dandruff and shingles, all sorts of inflammations, scorpion bites and even sweaty armpits. Our plant has white berries, but he regarded those with black berries (they become black later in the season) as being more effective. Lyte (1576) adds that the juice of the berries kept the hair black and stopped it falling out, and prevented intoxication. He notes that it only flowered in hot summers in England, but it is reliable in flower now, either due to global warming or selection of suitable clones. According to Lyte, it is named after Merlyne, a fair maiden of Athens in ancient Greece, who judged the athletic games. Slain by a disgruntled competitor, the goddess Minerva brought her back as the myrtle tree in perpetual memory. The myrtle tree is also an ancient Jewish symbol for peace and justice. Myrtle wine is still made in Tuscany and now even in China. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • A young uniformed man sitting with a pillow on his chair, facing a machine giving electro-magnetic treatment; a nurse holds his head in position. Photograph.
  • Commencing Monday, Nov. 22nd, 1880 : the smallest man and woman in the world! Frank Uffner's Midgets ... Miss Lucia Zarate, the smallest woman in the world ... General Mite, the smallest man in the world ... / Piccadilly Hall.
  • The Pygopagi Twins : the greatest and most astonishing natural phenomenon in the world : opinions of the press ... daily receptions between 2 and 5 p.m. / Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly.
  • The Pygopagi Twins : the greatest and most astonishing natural phenomenon in the world : opinions of the press ... daily receptions between 2 and 5 p.m. Admission 2s 6d. Evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission 1s. / Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly.
  • Rabies: check for stowaway animals to prevent the introduction of rabies into the British Isles. Colour lithograph, 1978.
  • The evolution of journalism, etcetera : souvenir of the International Press Conference, London, 1909.
  • King George III sits at a table approached by his son, the Prince of Wales. Engraving, 1770.
  • Two men, wrongly confined by Dr George Man Burrows in his lunatic asylum in Clapham, win a legal case against him and force him to flee. Lithograph by W. Heath, 1830.
  • Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (?). Oil painting.
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