Stories
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2F7f9763eb-fe35-4666-ba64-43948d49e0fa_ep_000897_002.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=50)
- Article
Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug
Today, cocaine has a very poor public image as one of the causes of crime and violence. But for the Victorians it was welcomed as the saviour of modern surgery.
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2F94d3c379-a956-4208-b2e0-872344b1fadb_heroaf.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=50)
- Article
Acid and the sexual psychonauts
How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/518b1fe0-931a-4e71-8c30-326240bc76f0_SDP_EP002365_230511_03843-HDR.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=50)
- Long read
Our complicated love affair with light
Sunlight is essential, but our relationship with artificial light is less clear cut. It expands what’s possible; it also obscures and polices. In this long read, Lauren Collee pits light against night, and reveals the shady places in between.
![](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/836c94da-2ba9-44fb-b820-c94f00dc9a02_EP002015_0001.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=50)
- Article
The healing power of breathing
The healing powers of different breathing methods are said to help with a range of health challenges, from asthma to PTSD. Effie Webb traces their spiritual origins and explores the modern proliferation of breathwork therapies.
Catalogue
- Books
- Online
On indigestion : its pathology, and treatment by the local application of uniform and continuous heat and moisture : with an account of an improved mode of applying heat or cold in irritative and inflammatory diseases / by James Arnott.
Date: 1847- Books
- Online
A treatise on the beneficial effects of cold and warm bathing : with an appendix containing a description of the baths erected at Portobello, near Edinburgh.
Date: 1807- Ephemera
- Online
Beecham Foods had an idea. They blended fresh lemons with rich blackcurrants; added glucose for energy, and vital vitamin C. Result? A great new drink with a sweet-and-sharp taste - a drink to help people forget their colds - and it's called... : Lembena.
Date: [1966?]- Ephemera
- Online
A fever - smear the wrists, 5" - 6" long with treacle - and cover it with brown paper...'Primitive Physic' John Wesley : 'Emprazil' tablets.
Date: 1965- Books
- Online
London medical gazette : being a weekly journal of medicine and the collateral sciences. Saturday, September 8, 1832.
Date: 1832