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Stories

  • Article

Drugs in Victorian Britain

Many common remedies were taken throughout the 19th century, with more people than ever using them. What was the social and cultural context of this development?

  • Article

Cloves to mull, mask and numb

Sweet, pungent, warm, woody: cloves smell and taste like Christmas. But there’s much more to this spice than that.

  • Article

Parasites and pests from the medieval to the modern

Humans have been reluctant hosts to a plethora of unpleasant parasites for centuries. And medieval evidence shows our modern distaste for these little irritations is just as ancient.

  • Article

Illuminated manuscripts, illuminating medicines

From rare bugs to exorbitantly priced plant parts, find out more about the artistic and medical uses of pigments from the past.

All stories (6)

Images

  • Toothache. Boss, in Wells Cathedral, Somerset.
  • A man with toothache. Etching by W. Hole.
  • A sculpture of a man with toothache. Wood engraving after Mr. Anderson.
  • Forrester's Neuralgic Mixture : cures toothache and neuralgia. Never fails. One shilling bottles.
  • Forrester's Neuralgic Mixture : cures toothache and neuralgia. Never fails. One shilling bottles.
  • Saint Augustine of Hippo: he suffers from toothache. Collotype (?), 1907, after Benozzo Gozzoli.
  • A man with the side of his face bandaged up because of toothache. Wood engraving.
  • Three miserable men suffering from gout, toothache and flu sitting around a table. Coloured lithograph.
  • Two monks in a laboratory trying to find a remedy for one monk's toothache. Watercolour by J. Gregory, 1896.
  • A man squirting a clyster in to somebody's mouth in order to cure his toothache, at a dinner table. Coloured etching.
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Catalogue

All works (189)