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Stories

  • Article

Black pepper to fuel fiery fights and cure haemorrhoids

This common condiment was once very valuable and, until surprisingly recently, used as a versatile medicine.

  • Article

The healing power of the physic garden

Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.

  • Article

Divining the world through an artist’s almanac

Amanda Couch's artists book, 'Huwawa in the Everyday: an almanac' is inspired by the entrail like folds of a medieval folding and its function as a guide for astrological divinations linking the body, health and the heavens. Like the original almanac her work is designed to be carried out into the wider world.

  • Article

The hell of hay fever

After years suffering in silence, David Jesudason finds speaking out about his pollen allergy gives him hope for a future where his hay-fever symptoms are under control.

All stories (8)

Images

  • A chemist preparing medicine; advertising Schering's Urotropina tablets. Lithograph after Leonhard Fries.
  • A figure comprised of medicine bottles and tablets, representing the patent medicine business, dances behind a pensive Lloyd George; representing attitudes to the introduction of the National Insurance Act of 1911. Wood engraving by B. Partridge, 1912.
  • A figure comprised of medicine bottles and tablets, representing the patent medicine business, dances behind a pensive Lloyd George; representing attitudes to the introduction of the National Insurance Act of 1911. Wood engraving by B. Partridge, 1912.
  • The Kaiser angrily throwing his medicines on to the floor and shouting at his physicians that he needs a victory not tablets. Pen drawing by J.H. Dowd, 1914.
  • Hydrangea quercifolia W.Bartram Hydrangeaceae. Oak-leaved hydrangea. Distribution: South-eastern United States. Beta-dichroine a quinazolinone also called febrifugine from the leaves of hydrangeas is 64-100 times more potent than quinine as an antimalarial in animals, but extremely toxic. A synthesised tolyl derivative, methaqualone (2-methyl-3-o-tolyl-4(3H)-quinazolinone), was found to be a mild hypnotic, and marketed in the sleeping tablet, Mandrax. Widely abused and quickly banned by most countries. Illegal manufacture continues and in South Africa methaqualone is the commonest drug of abuse, mixed with cannabis and smoked. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Tablets. I. The evolution of the tablet machine. II. A bibliography on tablets ... / by P.A. Foote.
  • Two ladies and a man in a turban discussing 'Nigog's magic pillules'. Pen drawing, ca. 1918.
  • A quack doctor irresponsibly dispensing his potions. Coloured lithograph.
  • A box, a bottle and a tube for ointment, pills and tablets. Pen and pencil drawing by E. Hodgkin, ca. 1969.
  • A nurse dropping an aspirin pill into a glass of water; advertising soluble aspirin. Colour lithograph by M. Cliot, ca. 1910.
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Catalogue

All works (192)