Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events

Stories

  • Article

Busting myths about turkey-baster babies

The popular idea of sex-free, turkey-baster-led conception has been around since the 1970s. Christine Ro goes beyond the utensils drawer to find out if it’s ever really happened.

  • Article

When monarchs healed the sick

Our current Queen fortunately doesn’t have to spend hours laying hands on the sick to cure them. But it was a different story for monarchs of the early modern era, whose touch was a sought-after treatment for scrofula.

  • Article

Colonialism and the origins of skin bleaching

The widespread practice of skin bleaching was heavily influenced by the Western colonisation and slavery of African and South Asian countries. Ngunan Adamu explores this toxic history.

  • Book extract

The 200-year search for normal people

Sarah Chaney poses the question we’ve likely all asked at some point in our lives: 'Am I normal?’, and explores whether normality even exists.

All stories (5)

Images

  • Dreadful explosion in a pit, 1828
  • Mining: A full acount of the dreadful disaster...1823
  • Toilet instruments hinged together.
  • The Miners' Petition from West Bromwich.
  • Toilet instruments hinged together.
  • Musée du Congo, Tervuren, Belgium: one of five interior scenes. Collotype.
  • A sick woman is attended to by three men. Colour line engraving by C.J.D. Eisen after himself, 1762.
  • Musée du Congo, Tervuren, Belgium: one of five interior scenes. Collotype.
  • "Early responsibilities", a drawing from Punch, 1900
  • The heads of women are reforged in a workshop by the sea; representing a brutal cure for the 'madness' of women. Line engraving by F. Campion, 1663.
All images (15)

Catalogue

All works (3.1K)