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Stories

  • Article

Charged bodies

Electrified humans brought education and performance together with a spark in the 18th century.

  • Article

How hospital care fails disabled bodies

Hospitals aim to make sick people well. But if the sick person is also disabled, the unbending nature of monolithic hospital systems can easily worsen the situation. Here Jamie Hale writes from painful personal experience.

  • Article

A history of gestation outside the body

It’s been over 400 years since a Swiss alchemist theorised that foetuses could develop outside the womb. Claire Horn examines incubator technology past and present, and explores the possibilities recent prototypes might bring.

  • Article

The conditional child

Deanna Fei asks what it means to sustain a life, drawing on her own experience of having a premature baby as well as an 18th-century essay.

All stories (28)

Images

  • For sexual transmission of HIV to occcur, body fluids (blood or semen) must enter the partner's body through the vagina, rectum or penis : A condom should be used in heterosexual sex for both vaginal and anal sex (for anal sex a stronger condom should be used) ... / Scottish AIDS Monitor ; photography by Alasdair Foster.
  • For sexual transmission of HIV to occcur, body fluids (blood or semen) must enter the partner's body through the vagina, rectum or penis : A condom should be used in heterosexual sex for both vaginal and anal sex (for anal sex a stronger condom should be used) ... / Scottish AIDS Monitor ; photography by Alasdair Foster.
  • Surgery: surgical instruments including a small tube for inserting into the body to allow fluid to enter or escape (cannulla) and a surgical scalpel (bistoury) Engraving with etching by A.J. Defehrt after L.-J. Goussier.
  • Fluid facts : being well hydrated keeps us going, and with water making up around 70% of our bodies, it's good to know the facts.
  • Fluid facts : being well hydrated keeps us going, and with water making up around 70% of our bodies, it's good to know the facts.
  • A method of studying physick. Containing what a physician ought to know in relation to the nature of bodies, the laws of motion ... and the properties of fluids: chymistry, pharmacy, and botany: osteology, myology ... and dissection: the theory and practice of physick: physiology, pathology, surgery, diet, etc. And the whole Praxis medica interna; with the names and characters of the most excellent authors on all these subjects ... their best editions, and the method of reading them / Written in Latin ... Translated into English by Mr. Samber.
  • The four qualities, elements, humours and temperaments. Drawing, 19--.
  • A young man returning from the hunt; representing the season spring. Engraving after Joachim von Sandrart I, ca. 1700.
  • The four elements, four qualities, four humours, four seasons, and four ages of man. Airbrush by Lois Hague, 1991.
  • The four elements, four qualities, four humours, four seasons, and four ages of man. Airbrush by Lois Hague, 1991.
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