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Stories

  • Book extract

Naked, not nude

Classicist Caroline Vout argues that it’s time to take the dust covers off the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and to encounter their bodies not nude, but naked.

  • Article

The extraction of the excruciating bladder stones

Among those vying to find alternatives to major surgery for bladder stones, young doctor Jean Civiale stood out, painstakingly honing a method that was to become the norm.

  • Article

Revelations of blindness in the Middle Ages

Medieval texts, from Islamic medical treatises to Christian books of miracles, reveal surprisingly varied and complex experiences of blindness. But when medieval scholar Jude Seal experienced visual impairment themselves, they gained an even deeper understanding of the lives they were studying.

  • Article

A brief history of tattoos

The earliest evidence of tattoo art dates from 5000 BC, and the practice continues to hold meaning for many cultures around the world.

All stories (6)

Images

  • Ancient Roman and Greek surgical instruments (1-9)
  • Ancient Roman and Greek surgical instruments (A-G):
  • Ancient Greek and Roman wind and string instruments. Engraving by J. Pass, 1818.
  • Ancient Greek and Roman wind and string instruments. Engraving by J. Pass, 1818.
  • A selection of ancient Roman surgical instruments, discovered at Pompeii. Pen and ink with watercolour, 18--?.
  • Series of Graeco-Roman surgical and toilet instruments found at Thebes. In the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. Ex-hamonic Collection
  • Roman and Greek bronze spatulae some with probe-ends
  • Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, Wigmore Street, London: reconstruction of a Roman surgery (taberna medica) in Pompeii. Photograph, c. 1913.
  • Roman surgical instruments, Dr. Goldschmid correspondence
  • Roman bronze forceps-surgical instruments
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Catalogue

All works (161)