Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events

Stories

  • Article

Parasites and pests from the medieval to the modern

Humans have been reluctant hosts to a plethora of unpleasant parasites for centuries. And medieval evidence shows our modern distaste for these little irritations is just as ancient.

  • Comic

Earworms

Sitting too close to a speaker can cause an infestation.

  • Comic

Plague

The monastery was infested with plague and was quarantined appropriately.

  • Article

Our endless quest for eternal youth

From poisonous 16th-century cosmetics to the latest “vampire facelift”, discover the fashions in unsavoury methods for improving our appearance.

All stories (7)

Images

  • Infestation with mice / E.L. Millar.
  • Infestation with mice / E.L. Millar.
  • Foal - unthriftiness due to worm infestation
  • Saint Odilia as protector against eye-pain and rat infestation. Coloured etching, ca. 1800.
  • Nepal; Kathmandu Valley, children of Bhaktapur, 1986. Three children stand in Durbar Square. The little boy has genu valgum (knock knees). In the mid-1980s, nearly half of all Nepalese children died before reaching the age of 5, and life expectancy at birth was 51 years for men and 50 years for women. Conditions associated with poor hygiene and sanitation, including gastrointestinal disorders, diarrhoea, and parasitic infestation, were common.
  • Mite infested chicken legs
  • The larva and pupa of a gall fly next to a gall fly in natural size and magnified, a cross-section of an infested fruit and a branch of a fruit tree with infested fruit. Engraving by Heath.
  • Two gall flies with their larva and pupa are shown next to infested plants. Engraving by Heath.
  • A woman carrying a dog in a basket being refused entry to public baths by an attandant who fears that the dog may be infested with fleas: the dog's owner retorts that she herself has more fleas. Wood engraving by S. Gap(?).
  • Flea larva
All images (57)

Catalogue

All works (247)