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Stories

  • In pictures

Deadly stinks and life-saving aromas in plague-stricken London

In the plague-ravaged London of 1665, could perfume really save your life?

  • Book extract

How stories bring us together

Elif Shafak considers how hard it is to be heard in our divided world, but how listening can nurture wisdom, connection and empathy.

  • Article

The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists

Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.

  • Article

The ‘undesirable epileptic’

Abused in her marriage for being 'a sick woman', Aparna Nair looked to history to make sense of the response to her epilepsy. She discovered how centuries of fear and discrimination were often endorsed by science and legislation.

All stories (8)

Images

  • The history of the contagious cholera; with facts explanatory of its origin and laws, and of a rational method of cure / By James Kennedy.
  • An historic sketch of the causes, progress, extent, and mortality of the contagious fever epidemic in Ireland during the years 1817, 1818, and 1819 / [William Harty] [Appendix].
  • The lips of a man and woman kissing with the message in German 'Humanity is contagious. An HIV-positive man does not kiss'; an advertisement by the AIDS-Hilfe. Colour lithograph by PK&P.
  • Hands form the shape of the AIDS red ribbon; with the message in German 'Humanity is contagious. With HIV-positive do not work'; an advertisement by the AIDS-Hilfe. Colour lithograph by PK&P.
  • A condom amidst speckled blue amorphous shapes with a message to save yourself from AIDS and that it is carefulness that should be contagious; an advertisement for safe sex by the Ministère de la Santé. Colour lithograph.
  • The back view of woman in a tight white strappy dress who is embraced by a man; with the message in German 'Humanity is contagious. With HIV (positive) women do not stroke/caress'; an advertisement by the AIDS-Hilfe. Colour lithograph by PK&P.
  • A forlorn-looking boy wearing dungarees stands with a ball under one arm and with one brace undone; with the message in German 'Humanity is contagious. With HIV (positive) children do not play'; an advertisement by the AIDS-Hilfe. Colour lithograph by PK&P.
  • Two men stand next to each other looking to the right, one wearing rolled down dungarees to reveal his bare chest; with the message in German 'Humanity is contagious. With HIV (positive) [men] do not work'; an advertisement by the AIDS-Hilfe. Colour lithograph by PK&P.
  • County of Wilts. : the contagious diseases (animals) act, 1878 : the animals order : notice is hereby given that the pigstye situate at Foxham, in the parish of Christian Malford, in the county of Wilts., in the occupation of Henry Freegard, is, by the Local Authority for the purposes of the above act, ordered, determined, and declared to be a place infected with swine fever... / by order, R.W. Merriman.
  • A plain and easie method for preserving [by God's blessing] those that are well from the infection of the plague, or any contagious distemper in city, camp, fleet, &c. and for curing such as are infected with it. Written in the year 1666 / By Tho. Willis ... With a poem on the virtue of a laurel leaf for curing of a rheumatism. By W[illiam] B[olton]. Never before printed.
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