Opium for the Masses
In Republican China, amid the chaos of dynastic collapse and war, opium became a rare stable currency, yielding huge riches for those who knew how to work the system.
Medicine & Disease
Care in the Community
Though often constrained by limited medical knowledge, 18th-century communities offered practical and emotional support to those experiencing mental distress.
Why Europe? Y. Pestis?
How the societies that the Black Death affected were set on a path to global expansion.
Lifting the Flap
Anatomical pop-up books, introduced in the 16th century, took anatomy out of the lecture hall and into the home.
A Medical Break Through
The physician James Parkinson, who lent his name to the medical condition he defined, was born on 11 April 1755.
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
Sherlock Holmes is the 19th century’s most famous cocaine user, but why did he take it?
Saving Face
The Renaissance face provided clues about the wealth and health of its owner. Those who had been disfigured were often mistreated, but to alter one’s appearance carried a stigma of its own.
Size Matters
In Georgian Britain, England’s ‘heaviest man’ became a celebrity, his likeness reproduced across an array of media.
The Doctor Is In
Mills & Boon’s medical romances helped make the NHS more appealing to an ambivalent public.
Birth of ‘Typhoid Mary’
The infamous Mary Mallon was born on 23 September 1869.