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The pulse of life

Your pulse is a vital sign of life. Variations in the pulse have been linked to illness, being in love and stress. You can’t live without a pulse, or can you?

  • Article

How electromagnetic therapy inspired me

Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.

  • Article

Electrical epilepsy and the EEG Test

The EEG (electroencephalograph) literally electrified the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. But for Aparna Nair the dreaded EEG tests of her adolescence were a painful ordeal.

  • Article

How tuberculosis became a test case for eugenic theory

A 19th-century collaboration that failed to prove how facial features could indicate the diseases people were most likely to suffer from became a significant stepping stone in the new ‘science’ of eugenics.

All stories (5)

Images

  • The diagnosis: a skeletal doctor measures a patient's pulse. Lithograph by L. Crusius, 1897.
  • Tracings of Vierordt's sphygmograph
  • Tracings of pulse in disease.
  • Marey's sphygmomanometer
  • Tracing of the pulse of a dog.
  • Marey's original's sphygmograph
  • Sir J. Mackenzie's ink polygraph (c.1910) recording radial pulse and carotid venous pulse
  • An old physician taking the pulse of a seated patient; representing the sense of touch. Aquatint with etching by J.-B. Le Prince, 1775.
  • A man taking the pulse of another man. Albumen print.
  • A medical practitioner taking a lady's pulse in a pharmacy. Oil painting by Emili Casals i Camps, ca. 1882.
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Catalogue

All works (99)