This display features a rare medieval birth scroll and explores protective practices and beliefs around pregnancy, childbirth and infertility past and present.

Volume 1 Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, seu rerum ad alchemiam pertinentium thesaurus instructissimus / [Jean-Jaques Manget].

Symptoms of hypoglycaemia in Kenya. Colour lithograph by Ministry of Health, ca. 2000. Date: [2000?] Reference: 755521i ...

In the five centuries since Europeans were introduced to tobacco, smoking has generated considerable controversy. This gallery tracks shifting views on smoking and health, from life-saving stimulant ...

How do you avoid catching the plague? Smoke constantly. Carry a sponge soaked in vinegar. Hang oranges studded with cloves around your house. This was the best medical advice available circa 1665, as ...

As Covid-19 first swept the UK in March 2020, seven Nightingale field hospitals were rapidly constructed across the country. The design ideas behind these conversions of existing buildings can be ...

In 1950, an American journalist popularised the term ‘brainwashing’, arguing that a new amalgam of technology, medicine and ideology was allowing an onslaught on people’s minds. In this abridged ...

show credit information for image 'A covered corpse lying on a bed. Etching by Ch. Chaplin after Louis-Henri Deschamps.' When terrible winter storms lashed the East Coast of America in December 2022, ...

Michael W Young feels the effects on his body whenever he spends time in Manhattan. Though his research team is based in New York, at Rockefeller University, Young lives outside the city and is ...

The cloud collar (云肩) has over 2,500 years of history in China. Yiling Zhang traces how having your head in the clouds went from cosmological symbol to fashion essential.

At the age of 22 I found myself in an airless, dreary and packed family court in India. My violent and abusive marriage was coming to an end. My husband couldn’t stand the fact that I was an ...

For centuries the human race has been prey to a variety of parasitic worms and lice. And not only do we have a long history as unwilling hosts, it seems that our disgust and embarrassment is also ...