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Stories

  • Article

The tradesman who confronted the pestilence

The City of London, 1665. As the Great Plague hits the capital, John New faces a deadly dilemma.

  • Article

How architecture builds a profession of stress

Architects might produce buildings that enhance our health, but at what cost? Kristin Hohenadel explores architecture’s pressurised and stressful culture.

  • Article

Epidemic threats and racist legacies

Epidemiology is the systematic, data-driven study of health and disease in populations. But as historian Jacob Steere-Williams suggests, this most scientific of fields emerged in the 19th century imbued with a doctrine of Western imperialism – a legacy that continues to influence how we talk about disease.

  • Article

Making sunstroke insanity

Medical historian Dr Kristin Hussey takes a closer look at sunstroke and mental illness, and how, in the late 19th century, they connected at the crossroads of colonial science and the idea of whiteness.

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Images

  • Regent's Park, London: a charity fair for the Royal dispensary for diseases of the ear. Coloured lithograph by M. Gauci, 1832.
  • Bergenia ciliata (Haw.)Sternb. Saxifraginaceae. Elephant's ears. Named for Karl August von Bergen (1704-1759), physician and botanist, professor at Viadrina University, Frankfurt. Has hairy leaves, hence ciliata. Distribution: E. Afghanistan, Himalayas, Assam. Used for fevers, diarrhoea, bruises and boils, coughs, renal stones, diabetes, heart disease, haemorrhoids, stomach disorders (Harish et al www.ijabpt.com). It was described in the 1820s so there is no early literature. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • A map of London: showing sites of medical and other interest in the City of London, and Westminster. Coloured lithograph, 1913.
  • A map of London: showing sites of medical and other interest in the City of London, and Westminster. Coloured lithograph, 1913.
  • William Gordon. Photograph by Heath & Bradnee Ltd.
  • A family doctor, an obstetrician, a sensationalist author-doctor and a hypnotist; all pruriently satirised under the guise of moralism, as promoted by James Morison and his pharmaceutical company. Lithograph, 1852.
  • A family doctor, an obstetrician, a sensationalist author-doctor and a hypnotist; all pruriently satirised under the guise of moralism, as promoted by James Morison and his pharmaceutical company. Lithograph, 1852.
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Catalogue

All works (74)