Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events

Stories

  • Article

The yogi as hermit, warrior, criminal and showman

How the modern world changed the life and reputation of the yogi.

  • Article

Why even plastic surgery can’t hide you from facial recognition

Once upon a time, plastic surgery allowed a few notorious criminals to evade the law. But today, sophisticated facial-recognition technology has turned dreams of anonymity to dust.

  • Article

Are people born violent?

Laura Bui explores how the nature vs nurture debate applies to those who commit homicide.

  • Article

Can our sexual desires be transformed?

In the 1950s, many psychiatrists thought that homosexuality could be reformed. One found that it couldn’t – and his discoveries led to a change in the law.

All stories (16)

Images

  • British politicians as huntsmen arriving at a river representing the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act 1887. Colour lithograph by Tom Merry, 3 December 1887.
  • The 1904 World's Fair, St. Louis, Missouri: a Japanese exhibit featuring criminal identification charts based on Alphonse Bertillon's system and framed images relating to Japanese law. Photograph, 1904.
  • Mallevs maleficarvm, maleficas et earvm hæresim frameā conterens, ex variis avctoribvs compilatvs. Et in quatuor tomos iusté distributus, qvorvm dvo priores vanas dæmonvm versutias, præstigiosas eorum delusiones, superstitiosas strigimagarum cæremonias, horrendos etiam cum illis congressus; exactam denique tam pestiferæ sectæ disquisitionem, & punitionem complectuntur. Tertius praxim exorcistarum ad dæmonum, & strigimagarum maleficia de Christi fidelibus pellenda; quartus verò artem doctrinalem, benedictionalem, & exorcismalem continent ... / [Heinrich Institoris].
  • Malleus maleficarum / [Heinrich Institoris].
  • Opere di Cesare Beccaria. Volume unico / [Cesare Beccaria].
  • The infant Oedipus is tied to a tree by the shepherd to whom he was entrusted by his parents. Etching by S. Rosa.
  • A convicted thief stands on trial in a packed law court while his sister weeps. Etching by G. Cruikshank, 1848, after himself.
  • A convicted thief stands on trial in a packed law court while his sister weeps. Coloured etching by G. Cruikshank, 1848, after himself.
  • Telephus (son of Hercules) being suckled by a doe in the temple of Athena where as an infant he was left to die. Colour photogravure after a mural at Herculaneum.
  • Telephus (son of Hercules) being suckled by a doe in the temple of Athena where as an infant he was left to die. Colour photogravure after a mural at Herculaneum.
All images (15)

Catalogue

All works (492)