Stories

Our words and pictures explore the connections between science, medicine, life and art. Dive into a story no matter where in the world you are. (Want to write for us? Here's how.)

Photograph showing two items of ephemera from the Wellcome library. Photographed on a wooden table, one item is promoting Hall's Coca Wine and reads "A marvellous restorative". The other is part of a drug awareness poster from the 1980/90s titled "Frank, drugs: the facts".
  • Essay

Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug

Today, cocaine has a very poor public image as one of the causes of crime and violence. But for the Victorians it was welcomed as the saviour of modern surgery.
Photograph of a burning joker card in a silver dish. On the card is the face of the 1920s mind reader, Alexander.
  • Essay

Western magic’s fascination with the foreigner

Could modern magic shows be perpetuating damaging cultural stereotypes? Shelley Saggar shows how ‘exotic’ costumes and imagery are far from harmless fun.
Photograph of two mole's feet on a stippled dark grey background, which are part of an amulet collection.
  • Image gallery

Moles’ feet, dried frogs and other folk medicines

Early-20th-century folklorist Edward Lovett made it his mission to discover the nation’s beliefs and superstitions, collecting amulets from cottage cupboards up and down the country.

Part of Inside Our Collections

Memory comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Memory

A memory is just the leftover carcass of your mind's creative metabolisation of the past.

Part of Body Squabbles

Photograph through a kaleidescope of the head of a man. His hands are held up in front of his face, with fingers outstretched, framing has eye. The background is made up of blue and red fabric.
  • Essay

Dynamo on the past, present and future of magic

The magician takes a tour and shares stories of history and inspiration.

The Architecture Diaries

Emily Sargent examines the influence of health on architecture, tracing the changing priorities in wider society, and gives her view on how successful architecture has been in improving health.

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Photograph of an early printed book open as a page where a previous owner has had a go at copying an illustration of a man playing a guitar like instrument. Next to the open book are a couple of paint brushes and a small dish with saffron leaves on it.
  • Essay

Medieval doodles

Fish, lute players and defaced demons: marginal doodles in some of Europe’s first printed books provide a tantalising glimpse into the late-medieval mind.

Part of Inside Our Collections

Photograph of a section of an oil painting in a gilded ornate frame, against a brick wall painted white. The oil painting shows a man letting blood from another seated man's arm. Beside them stands a woman holding a bucket. Waiting dates from 1610 to 1690.
  • Image gallery

Bloodletting at the barber-surgeon’s

Scratchy throat? Burning fever? Broken heart? It all comes down to the same issue: too much blood.

Part of Inside Our Collections

Photograph of a man standing behind a projected image of a colour illustration.
  • Essay

The intermediate life of spirits

Courttia Newland explores the events and his feelings surrounding the death of his mother-in-law, Tara Chauhan.

Part of Hidden Bodies

Wrinkles comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Wrinkles

Maybe instead of looking for ways to fix wrinkles we should find ways to use them.

Part of Body Squabbles

Photograph of a young woman standing behind a projected image of a page from an early printed book.
  • Essay

The conditional child

Deanna Fei asks what it means to sustain a life, drawing on her own experience of having a premature baby as well as an 18th-century essay.

Part of Hidden Bodies

Photograph of a young woman standing behind a projected image of a black and white illustration of a woman standing with her fists clenched.
  • Essay

The leukaemia diagnosis I didn’t see coming

Treatment for leukaemia kept journalist Hannah Partos in isolation, like the female prisoner whose image inspired her to write this piece.

Part of Hidden Bodies