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Stories

  • Article

The power of unicorns

Discover the unlikely connection between pharmaceuticals and unicorns.

  • Article

The doctor who challenged the unicorn myth

Our era of fake news and medical misinformation is nothing new. Estelle Paranque relays the thrusts and parries of a 440-year-old row over a magical cure-all, the unicorn horn.

  • Article

Would you like to buy a unicorn?

The story behind why somebody tried to sell Henry Wellcome a unicorn head in 1928.

  • Article

The origins and meanings of pharmacy symbols

What have snakes, unicorns and crocodiles got to do with pharmacies? The history of these modern signs goes back to the Greek gods.

All stories (6)

Images

  • A unicorn. Woodcut after C. Gessner.
  • A virgin and a unicorn; representing chastity. Oil painting.
  • A virgin and a unicorn; representing chastity. Oil painting.
  • Tusk of the narwhal (Monodon monoceros), or horn of the unicorn.
  • Above, a spotted file fish; below, a unicorn file fish. Engraving by Jackson.
  • Doctrine of signatures: (above) a plant (arum) with seed-pods resembling the horn of a unicorn, and (below) a unicorn's head. Coloured ink drawing by C. Etheridge, 1906, after G.B. Della Porta.
  • A unicorn, a squirrel and a mouse. Cut-out engravings pasted onto paper, 16--?.
  • A sheep, two horses, a cow and a unicorn. Cut-out engravings pasted onto paper, 16--?.
  • Saint Justina, with a unicorn and a man praying to her. Etching by W. Unger after Moretto of Brescia.
  • The head of a rhinoceros with overgrown horn thought to be a unicorn. Coloured lithograph by (J.H.?) Clark after Campbell.
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Catalogue

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