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  • Article

Making sunstroke insanity

Medical historian Dr Kristin Hussey takes a closer look at sunstroke and mental illness, and how, in the late 19th century, they connected at the crossroads of colonial science and the idea of whiteness.

  • Article

Society, not Covid-19, makes us vulnerable

Rick Burgess coped with the death of his mother in February 2020 by immersing himself in the task of protecting his community from Covid-19 and challenging the government's failure to protect and support elderly and Disabled people during the pandemic.

  • Article

Homes for the hives of industry

By building workers’ villages, industry titans demonstrated both philanthropy and control. Employees’ health improved, while rulebooks told them how to live ideal lives.

  • Article

Female masturbation and the perils of pleasure

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

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  • The history of the Royal Society of London, for the Improving of Natural Knowledge / By Tho. Sprat.
  • Description of the Retreat, an institution near York, for insane persons of the Society of Friends : containing an account of its origin and progress, the modes of treatment, and a statement of cases / By Samuel Tuke. With an elevation and plans of the building.
  • Description of the Retreat, an institution near York, for insane persons of the Society of Friends : containing an account of its origin and progress, the modes of treatment, and a statement of cases / By Samuel Tuke. With an elevation and plans of the building.
  • Description of the Retreat, an institution near York, for insane persons of the Society of Friends : containing an account of its origin and progress, the modes of treatment, and a statement of cases / By Samuel Tuke. With an elevation and plans of the building.
  • Description of the Retreat, an institution near York, for insane persons of the Society of Friends : containing an account of its origin and progress, the modes of treatment, and a statement of cases / By Samuel Tuke. With an elevation and plans of the building.
  • Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge.
  • Vicia faba L. Fabaceae. Broad beans, Fava bean. Distribution: N. Africa, SW Asia. Culpeper (1650) writes: 'Fabarum. Of Beans. Of Bean Cods (or Pods as we in Sussex call them) being burned, the ashes are a sovereign remedy for aches in the joints, old bruises, gout and sciaticaes.’ The beans are perfectly edible for the majority, but 1% of Caucasians, predominantly among Greeks, Italians and people from the Eastern Mediterranean regions, have a genetic trait in that they lack the ability to produce the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. As a consequence, eating broad beans or even inhaling the pollen, causes a severe haemolytic anaemia a few days later. This condition is known as favism. The whole plant, including the beans, contains levodopa, a precursor of dopamine, and some patients with Parkinsonism report symptomatic improvement after commencing on a diet that contains these beans regularly. A case of neuroleptic malignant-like syndrome (fever, rigidity, autonomic instability, altered consciousness, elevated creatine phosphokinase levels) consequent on abrupt discontinuation of a diet containing plenty of broad beans, has been described in a patient with Parkinsonism. This is usually seen when patients abruptly discontinue L-dopa therapy. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • A fat judge pinching and admiring the fat on the side of a fat bullock. Etching by J. Gillray, ca 1802.
  • Northwoods asylum and surrounding grounds, Bristol. Line engraving by W. Miller after S.D. Swarbreck.
  • Northwoods asylum and surrounding grounds, Bristol. Line engraving by W. Miller after S.D. Swarbreck.
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