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  • Article

Drugs in Victorian Britain

Many common remedies were taken throughout the 19th century, with more people than ever using them. What was the social and cultural context of this development?

  • Article

Drug sharing in desperate times

When Nicole was threatened with deportation, her mental health deteriorated. Now without a job, a passport or a doctor, she depends on others to send her their leftover anxiety drugs.

  • In pictures

How an animation educated the army

In a 1940s cartoon intended to persuade US troops to take malaria medication, the makers pitted a clodhopping soldier against a wily mosquito. If only Private SNAFU had followed the government’s advice.

  • Article

Dating on dopamine

Drug treatment for Parkinson’s can come with an unwanted side serving of compulsive behaviour, as Pete Langman discovered. Read about his dating journey in a dopamine cloud.

All stories (44)

Images

  • Control freak! : can't remember to take my HIV drugs, can't get it together to use condoms, can't get a hard on any more, can't make it to work on Mondays, can't pay all my bills... / Camden & Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust ; designed by Eureka! Graphic Design Limited.
  • Control freak! : can't remember to take my HIV drugs, can't get it together to use condoms, can't get a hard on any more, can't make it to work on Mondays, can't pay all my bills... / Camden & Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust ; designed by Eureka! Graphic Design Limited.
  • A woman pushes a trolley down a dilapidated street in Lima, Peru representing poverty; with 4 smaller images depicting social issues associated with AIDS including packets of money in bank safes, drugs and male prostitutes; an AIDS prevention advertisement by Pecos, the Programa Especial de Control del SIDA. Colour lithograph by Juan L. Gargurevich, ca. 1995.
  • Senecio pulcher Hook.&Arn. Asteraceae Distribution: South America. It has not attracted attention as a medicinal or toxic plant but members of the genus Senecio contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids that are toxic to the liver and may cause liver cancer. A traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) product, Qianbai Biyan Pian, contains Senecio scandens which contains the unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids, senecionine and seneciphylline. This is now a banned drug. (Safety of Herbal Medicinal Products, July 2002, Medicines Control Agency). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Senecio pulcher Hook.&Arn. Asteraceae Distribution: South America. It has not attracted attention as a medicinal or toxic plant but members of the genus Senecio contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids that are toxic to the liver and may cause liver cancer. A traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) product, Qianbai Biyan Pian, contains Senecio scandens which contains the unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids, senecionine and seneciphylline. This is now a banned drug. (Safety of Herbal Medicinal Products, July 2002, Medicines Control Agency). Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Solanum laciniatum Aiton Solanaceae. Kangaroo Apple. Evergreen shrub. Distribution: New Zealand and the east coast of Australia. It contains steroidal saponins that can be converted into steroids, including progesterone, oestrogens, cortisone, prednisolone etc. In 1943, Professor Russell Marker discovered a method of obtaining an unsaturated steroidal saponine, diosogenin, from Mexican yam (Dioscorea mexicana), which can easily and cheaply be converted into steroids, such as prednisone and progesterone, reducing the price of steroid production to a fraction (0.5%) of its former cost. For 20 years drug companies showed little interest, and it was only as a result of Professor Marker forming his own company, and the concerted efforts of several gynaecologists, physiologists and birth-control advocates, that the contraceptive pill was ‘born’ in 1960. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Guidelines for the management of acute paracetamol overdose in Ethiopia. Colour lithograph by DACA, ca. 2000.
  • Keep healthy, happy and slim by talking Bile Beans brand pills.
  • Keep healthy, happy and slim by talking Bile Beans brand pills.
  • Keep healthy, happy and slim by talking Bile Beans brand pills.
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