Stories
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Would you like to buy a dinosaur?
Two remarkable letters and a drawing of a plesiosaur by Mary Anning offer a tantalising portal into the exciting world of fossil hunting and discovery of the 1800s.
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A history of gestation outside the body
It’s been over 400 years since a Swiss alchemist theorised that foetuses could develop outside the womb. Claire Horn examines incubator technology past and present, and explores the possibilities recent prototypes might bring.
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The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists
Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.
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The father of handwashing
Doctors performing autopsies and then delivering babies – with not a hint of soap in between – was the grim recipe producing a lot of motherless offspring in the 1800s. But one man’s gargantuan efforts to upend accepted medical thinking turned the tide.
Catalogue
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The diseases of women with child, and in child-bed : as also, the best directions how to help them in natural and unnatural labours. : With fit remedies for the several indispositions of new-born babes. : Illustrated with divers fair figures, newly and very correctly engraven in copper. : A work much more perfect than any yet extant in English: being very necessary for all chirurgeons and midwives that practise this art. / Written in French by Francis Mauriceau. ; Translated, and enlarged with some marginal-notes, by Hugh Chamberlen.
Mauriceau, François, 1637-1709Date: 1672- Books
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A companion for midwives, child-bearing women, and nurses : directing them how to perform their respective offices : together with an essay, endeavouring to shew the influence of moral abuses upon the health of children / by Robert Barret.
Barret, Robert, Brother of Surgeons HallDate: 1699- Books
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The birth of man-kinde; otherwise named The womans booke. Set forth in English by Thomas Raynald physitian, and by him corrected and augmented. The contents are in the table following, but chiefly in the prologue.
Raynalde, Thomas, active 1540-1551Date: 1626- Books
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The expert midwife, or An excellent and most necessary treatise of the generation and birth of man : Wherein is contained many very notable and necessary particulars requisite to be knovvne and practised: with diuers apt and usefull figures appropriated to this worke. Also the causes, signes, and various cures, of the most principall maladies and infirmities incident to women. Six bookes compiled in Latine by the industry of Iames Rueff, a learned and expert chirurgion: and now translated into English for the generall good and benefit of this nation.
Rüff, Jakob, 1500-1558Date: 1637- Books
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The birth of man-kinde; othervvise named, The womans booke. Set forth in English by Thomas Raynald physitian, and by him corrected and augmented. The contents are in the table following, but chiefly in the prologue.
Raynalde, Thomas, active 1540-1551Date: 1634