Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events

Stories

  • Article

Jim, the horse of death

Horses’ blood was used to produce an antitoxin that saved thousands of children from dying from diphtheria, but contamination was a deadly problem. Find out how a horse called Jim was the catalyst for the beginnings of medical regulation.

  • Article

A story of death, trauma and austerity

Marienna Pope-Weidemann, whose teenage cousin Gaia died after going missing, advocates a rethink of our systems, which currently fail many in mental distress.

  • Article

Paris Morgue and a public spectacle of death

Known as the “only free theatre in Paris”, La Morgue was a popular place for the public to view cadavers on display.

  • Article

Designing death in the virtual city

Danger and death are fun when they’re virtual – and when they incorporate realistic elements. Now the tables are turned, as urban planners learn from game environments.

All stories (104)

Images

  • Ten surgeons discussing the cause of death of George Clarke, who died in riots at an election at Brentford in 1768. Line engraving, 1769.
  • Essays on the bilious fever : containing the different opinions of those eminent physicians John Williams and Parker Bennett, of Jamaica: which was the cause of a duel, and terminated in the death of both.
  • A rosary, a medallion of St Benedict, a charm said to cause loss of eyesight, and hands showing lines and features to be interpreted by palmistry (including lines forecasting violent death); all illustrating 'superstition'. Engraving.
  • A skull and bones on a grave next to a small picture top left of a couple holding hands, a reminder that AIDS can cause death by the AIDS Control Programme, Ministry of Health, Uganda. Lithograph, ca. 1990's.
  • Lathyrus vernus (L.)Bernh. Papilionaceae previously Orobus vernus L. (Linnaeus, 1753) Spring vetchling. Distribution: Europe to Siberia. The seeds of several Lathyrus species are toxic, and when eaten cause a condition called lathyrism. The chemical diaminoproprionic acid in the seeds causes paralysis, spinal cord damage, aortic aneurysm, due to poisoning of mitochondria causing cell death. Occurs where food crops are contaminated by Lathyrus plants or where it is eaten as a 'famine food' when no other food is available. It is the Orobus sylvaticus purpureus vernus of Bauhin (1671) and Orobus sylvaticus angustifolius of Parkinson (1640) - who records that country folk had no uses for it. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Lathyrus vernus (L.)Bernh. Papilionaceae previously Orobus vernus L. (Linnaeus, 1753) Spring vetchling. Distribution: Europe to Siberia. The seeds of several Lathyrus species are toxic, and when eaten cause a condition called lathyrism. The chemical diaminoproprionic acid in the seeds causes paralysis, spinal cord damage, aortic aneurysm, due to poisoning of mitochondria causing cell death. Occurs where food crops are contaminated by Lathyrus plants or where it is eaten as a 'famine food' when no other food is available. It is the Orobus sylvaticus purpureus vernus of Bauhin (1671) and Orobus sylvaticus angustifolius of Parkinson (1640) - who records that country folk had no uses for it. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Speculum ægrotorum: the sicke-mens glasse: or a plaine introduction wherby one may giue a true and infallible iudgement, of the life or death of a sicke bodie, the originall cause of the griefe, how he is tormented and afflicted, what thinges are medicinable to the diseased person: and the day and houre in which he shall recouer, or surrender his vitall breath. Whereunto is annexed a treatise of the foure humors, and how they are ingendered and distributed in our humane bodies; with certaine and manifest signes to discerne of whate complexion any man is: and the operation that eating, drinking, rest and exercise, worketh in euery person: with certain speciall preseruatiues for the eye-sight / Composed by John Fage.
  • Veratrum nigrum L. Melanthiaceae Distribution: Europe. Cows do not eat Veratrum species in the meadows, and human poisoning with it caused vomiting and fainting. In the 1850s it was found to reduce the heart's action and slow the pulse (Bentley, 1861, called it an 'arterial sedative'), and in 1859 it was used orally in a woman who was having convulsions due to eclampsia. Dr Paul DeLacy Baker in Alabama treated her with drops of a tincture of V. viride. She recovered. It was used thereafter, as the first choice of treatment, and, when blood pressure monitoring became possible, it was discovered that it worked by reducing the high blood pressure that occurs in eclampsia. By 1947 death rates were reduced from 30% to 5% by its use at the Boston Lying-in Hospital. It works by dilating the arteries in muscles and in the gastrointestinal circulation. A further use of Veratrum species came to light when it was noted that V. californicum - and other species - if eaten by sheep resulted in foetal malformations, in particular only having one eye. The chemical in the plant that was responsible, cyclopamine, was found to act on certain genetic pathways responsible for stem cell division in the regulation of the development of bilateral symmetry in the embryo/foetus. Synthetic analogues have been developed which act on what have come to be called the 'hedgehog signalling pathways' in stem cell division, and these 'Hedgehog inhibitors' are being introduced into medicine for the treatment of various cancers like chondrosarcoma, myelofibrosis, and advanced basal cell carcinoma. The drugs are saridegib, erismodegib and vismodegib. All the early herbals report on its ability to cause vomiting. As a herbal medicine it is Prescription Only, via a registered dentist or physician (UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Veratrum album L. Melanthiaceae Distribution: Europe. Cows do not eat Veratrum species in the meadows, and human poisoning with it caused vomiting and fainting. In the 1850s it was found to reduce the heart's action and slow the pulse (Bentley, 1861, called it an 'arterial sedative'), and in 1859 it was used orally in a woman who was having convulsions due to eclampsia. Dr Paul DeLacy Baker in Alabama treated her with drops of a tincture of V. viride. She recovered. It was used thereafter, as the first choice of treatment, and when blood pressure monitoring became possible, it was discovered that it worked by reducing the high blood pressure that occurs in eclampsia. By 1947 death rates were reduced from 30% to 5% by its use at the Boston Lying in Hospital. It works by dilating the arteries in muscles and in the gastrointestinal circulation. A further use of Veratrum species came to light when it was noted that V. californicum -and other species - if eaten by sheep resulted in foetal malformations, in particular only having one eye. The chemical in the plant that was responsible, cyclopamine, was found to act on certain genetic pathways responsible for stem cell division in the regulation of the development of bilateral symmetry in the embryo/foetus. Synthetic analogues have been developed which act on what have come to be called the 'hedgehog signalling pathways' in stem cell division, and these 'Hedgehog inhibitors' are being introduced into medicine for the treatment of various cancers like chondrosarcoma, myelofibrosis, and advanced basal cell carcinoma. The drugs are saridegib, erismodegib and vismodegib. All the early herbals report on its ability to cause vomiting. As a herbal medicine it is Prescription Only, via a registered dentist or physician (UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Explosion of an industrial oxygen container in a factory, causing death: before filling the reservoir of a gas motor, either nitrogen or carbon monoxide should have been used first. Colour lithograph, 192-.
All images (130)

Catalogue

All works (1.1K)