Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events

Stories

  • Article

The bishop’s profitable sex workers

How did the Church rake in revenue from 14th-century sex regulations? Kate Lister explores a bishop’s lucrative rulebook.

  • In pictures

Sex and syphilis

Before antibiotics, syphilis unleashed centuries of misery, countered by desperate but largely useless remedies. With the spread of syphilis on the rise, it’s worth remembering what our forebears suffered.

  • Article

Female masturbation and the perils of pleasure

Dr Kate Lister exposes the brutal 19th-century ‘cures’ for women who indulged in masturbation.

  • Article

Dial ‘S’ for sex

In pre-internet days, phone boxes became a patchwork of ‘tart cards’ offering sexual services. Find out about the clandestine world they hint at.

All stories (11)

Images

  • The art of cookery, in imitation of Horace's Art of poetry. With some letters to Dr. Lister, and others: occassion'd principally by the title of a book publish'd by the Doctor, being the works of Apicius Coelius, concerning the soups and sauces of the antients. With an extract of the greatest curiosities contain'd in that book. To which is added Horace's Art of poetry, in Latin / By the author of the Journey to London [i.e. W. King].
  • Foundation of dispensaries, list prepared by Dr. McConaghey
  • Account of the reparation of Dr. Pitcairne's monument in the Grayfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, with a list of medical practitioners residing in Edinburgh, who agreed to pay each an equal share of the expence of that reparation. December 25 1800.
  • Account of the reparation of Dr. Pitcairne's monument in the Grayfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, with a list of medical practitioners residing in Edinburgh, who agreed to pay each an equal share of the expence of that reparation. December 25 1800.
  • Account of the reparation of Dr. Pitcairne's monument in the Grayfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, with a list of medical practitioners residing in Edinburgh, who agreed to pay each an equal share of the expence of that reparation. December 25 1800.
  • Account of the reparation of Dr. Pitcairne's monument in the Grayfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, with a list of medical practitioners residing in Edinburgh, who agreed to pay each an equal share of the expence of that reparation. December 25 1800.
  • Account of the reparation of Dr. Pitcairne's monument in the Grayfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, with a list of medical practitioners residing in Edinburgh, who agreed to pay each an equal share of the expence of that reparation. December 25 1800.
  • Account of the reparation of Dr. Pitcairne's monument in the Grayfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, with a list of medical practitioners residing in Edinburgh, who agreed to pay each an equal share of the expence of that reparation. December 25 1800.
  • Account of the reparation of Dr. Pitcairne's monument in the Grayfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, with a list of medical practitioners residing in Edinburgh, who agreed to pay each an equal share of the expence of that reparation. December 25 1800.
  • Account of the reparation of Dr. Pitcairne's monument in the Grayfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, with a list of medical practitioners residing in Edinburgh, who agreed to pay each an equal share of the expence of that reparation. December 25 1800.
All images (46)

Catalogue

All works (1.4K)