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  • Article

The anatomy of a brain dissection

Dissecting the brain after death not only helps confirm a diagnosis, but it can also teach us so much more about the symptoms and causes of brain diseases and how to treat them.

  • Article

The mystery of the malignant brain

In 1884 a neurologist successfully used a patient’s symptoms, plus a new kind of map, to locate a brain tumour. Discover how his best-laid plans for treatment worked out.

  • In pictures

When civilisation made people sick

Sickness from nervous exhaustion is not a new thing. Over a hundred years ago, neurasthenia afflicted society’s ‘brain-workers’.

  • Article

Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high

The rapid, short-lived high we get from whippets, reefers and vapes can be accompanied by long-term health consequences. The search is on for safer ways to get stoned.

All stories (33)

Images

  • The morbid anatomy of the human brain. Illustrated by coloured engravings of the most frequent and important organic diseases to which that viscus is subject / [Robert Hooper].
  • Diseases of the nervous system. Care of the loss of speech and its association with partial destruction of left-anterior lobe of the brain (localization of speech centres).
  • Neurons derived from human neural stem cells. The green staining highlights the typical appearance of differentiated nerve cells. Cells such as these could form the basis of future treatments for degenerative brain diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
  • The start of the third book depicting disease of the brain. Avicenna, Canon, Isfahan, 1632 A.D.
  • Alzheimer’s Disease is a degenerative disorder of the brain which starts in middle or late life. It mainly affects the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, where the cortex becomes atrophied. Plaques containing an amyloid-like protein have been found within the cortex on examination.
  • A diseased brain; and a section of diseased brain. Stipple etching by W. T. Fry after C. J. Canton for Richard Bright, 1829.
  • Friern Hospital, London: a diseased brain, viewed from above. Photograph, 1890/1910.
  • A dissected brain; and two sections of diseased brain. Coloured stipple etching by W. T. Fry for Richard Bright, 1829.
  • A diseased brain. Watercolour, 18--, after F. R. Say for Richard Bright, 1827.
  • A dissected brain; and a section of diseased brain. Coloured stipple etching by W. T. Fry after C. J. Canton for Richard Bright, 1829.
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