Stories
- Photo story
Wool, fleas, plague
During the bubonic plague epidemic of 1665-6, the residents of Eyam in Derbyshire quarantined themselves to help prevent the disease spreading. Simon Norfolk tells the story of this small community’s sacrifice.
- In pictures
The celebrity physician and the plague
The iconic “plague prevention costume” invented by a 17th-century French doctor secured his fame in royal circles. But other aspects of Charles de Lorme’s career made him a controversial figure.
- Article
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.
- Article
Words of hope and anger
Author and spoken word poet Penny Pepper remembers her childhood dreams, and speaks out against the barriers society uses to prevent disabled people from fulfilling their potential.
Catalogue
- Books
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Londons disease, and cure: being a soveraigne receipt against the plague, for prevention sake. By John Qvarles, philo-medicus.
Quarles, John, 1624-1665Date: 1665- Books
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The late dreadful plague at Marseilles compared with that terrible plague in London, in the year 1665. In which died above a Hundred Thousand Persons, and sometimes between 8 and 9000 a Week; Carts continually going about London Streets, to fetch away in Heaps, and by whole Cart Loads the Dead Bodies: The Carmen having a Bell in their Hand, and crying out Bring out your Dead. - Bring out your Dead. Together with the Method of Cure used to those who Recovered in London, not one having Died that used it: And Rules for its Prevention and Cure. Published for the Preservation and Benefit of all Persons who may at any Time be, where this terrible Marseillian Infection may reach. And is proper to be kept in Every Family to be ready at Hand in the Day of Tribulation and Affliction, and Time of Need. In two parts. Dedicated to Dr. Sloane. Enter'd in the Hall-Book. By the author of The practical scheme Part I. This Book is (for the Publick Good) Given Gratis, only Up one Pair of Stairs at the Sign of the Celebrated Anodyne Necklace, recommended by Dr. Chamberlen for Childrens Teeth, near the Rose Tavern without Temple Bar.
Author of The practical scheme.Date: 1721- Books
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Reports to the Lord Provost and magistrates of the city of Edinburgh on the pathological appearances, symptoms, treatment, and means of preventing cattle plague / by Andrew Smart.
Date: 1866- Books
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Observations on the disease called the plague, the dysentery, the ophthalmy of Egypt, and on the means of prevention. : With some remarks on the yellow fever of Cadiz, and the description and plan of an hospital for the reception of patients affected with epidemic and contagious diseases / by P. Assalini ; translated from the French by Adam Neale.
Assalini, Paolo.Date: 1804- Books
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La peste en Turquie dans les temps modernes : sa prophylaxie défectueuse, sa limitation spontanée / par J.-D. Tholozan.
Date: 1880