Home| StoriesInside our collectionsSeriesshow credit information for image 'Woodblock: Ambrosia altera'Woodblock: Ambrosia altera, Benjamin Gilbert. Source: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).In picturesWorking well or sick of work?Sometimes we literally get sick of our jobs. Discover how researchers and medics throughout history have made connections between our work and our wellbeing.In picturesThe eyes have itIn 1583, eye specialist Georg Bartisch published a book detailing the treatments he’d developed for various eye disorders. Today his approach seems to mix surprising innovation with entirely contemporary religious judgement.In picturesPepys and the plagueThrough its long history, London has survived some enormous epidemics. During the 1665 Great Plague of London, the city burned, shops closed, the streets emptied and bodies piled up. Read Samuel Pepys’s account of how the city pulled through.In picturesThe dangers of women’s speechFor centuries, women have been ridiculed and punished for excessive talking, despite the fact that men gossip just as much.In picturesA short history of wellbeing through exerciseDuring the current pandemic, billions of people around the world are confined to home, making mood-boosting daily exercise indispensable. Discover how humans from the ancient Greeks onwards have realised the benefits of physical activity.In picturesBird-spotting from medieval to modern timesWhat use is ‘twitching’? Exploring materials created over 500 years shows that there’s more to birdwatching than meets the eye.In picturesWater of life?From ancient sources of spiritual sustenance to the modern spa, Ross MacFarlane traces a brief history of healing waters.ArticleBefriending heavy breathersRead the fascinating story behind the rare manual that helped volunteers on one of Britain’s first free telephone helplines to deal with masturbating callers.In picturesMass murder and marvellous medicineFind out how arsenic has been used for good and ill, to cure and kill, for centuries.In picturesFairs, fires and the future of SmithfieldAs meat trading in the area ends, Tom Bolton looks at the history of London’s Smithfield, which has been a place of healing and death, markets and mess for 900 years.ArticleRemote romance and the common coldGetting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.In picturesMy search for a stronger voiceFind out what kinds of treatment history offered to people suffering from voice problems.In picturesA brief history of contraceptionFrom douches to diaphragms, and condoms to caps, discover the wide range of contraception methods people have used over the centuries.In picturesImagining the foetusFrom the miniature adult in the womb imagined by 15th-century artists to the increasing detail of today’s ultrasound scans, Tania Staras traces our changing view of the human foetus.In picturesTestimonies of birthA 1980s film about childbirth explores how the experience felt for the women featured and offers a glimpse into the big birthing trends of the day.In picturesThe beautiful language of bookplatesDon’t judge a book only by its cover. Take a look inside, where decorative bookplates reveal stories that cross continents and centuries.In picturesFlorence Nightingale, Victorian design and the treatment of Covid-19Discover how the design of Britain’s Nightingale hospitals, set up during the first national lockdown, is based closely on Florence Nightingale’s pioneering ideas for the most effective hospital layout.In picturesRevealing the iron corsetThere are around 15 iron corsets in museum collections around the world, including two in Wellcome Collection. Historians still dispute their purpose, but these intriguing objects hold clues about who would have worn them and why.In picturesHow an animation educated the armyIn a 1940s cartoon intended to persuade US troops to take malaria medication, the makers pitted a clodhopping soldier against a wily mosquito. If only Private SNAFU had followed the government’s advice.In picturesHow to live well, the medieval wayThese days we might not think that celibacy could kill you, but otherwise, medieval tips to maintain wellness still often ring true.Previous (page 3)Page 4 of 8Next (page 5)