Doctor bleeding a patient

Medicine and health

After Hiroshima: the atomic plague

St. Pancras Smallpox Hospital.

QuizHow much do you know about the history of disease?

A cartoon depicting an ancient Assyrian king sitting upright in bed. His eyes are wide open and he has an anxious expression on his face. An open window to the right of the scene shows the moon and stars

Give away your worries, like an ancient Mesopotamian

Illustration of Adolf Hitler perfroming the Nazi salute with one testicle on the floor

Second World War

Did Adolf Hitler really only have one testicle?

The Victorians’ cocaine habit: why 19th-century Britain couldn't get enough of the 'miracle' drug

A history of happiness: 5 life lessons from the past

The 'Blue People' of Kentucky

Blue Fugates: the rare blood disorder that turned the ‘Blue People of Kentucky’ blue

How medicine became a moneymaker

Women's bodies: an unreliable history

Secret forceps & pig bladders: medical objects through time

Leper Crusaders: how disease-stricken knights forged an army in the Holy Land

'Monster soup commonly called Thames water, being a correct representation of that precious stuff doled out to us!!!', 1828; showing an ugly woman holding a spy glass which touches the circumference of a large circle representing a magnified drop of water filled with grotesque aquatic creatures. A satire on the Metropolitan Water Supply.

From murder bottles to arsenic wallpaper: 5 hidden killers in Victorian Britain

Victorian healthcare | HistoryExtra Academy video lecture

Week four quiz: medicine and health in Victorian Britain

The opthalmoscope revolutionised ophthalmology, allowing physicians to examine the inside of the human eye. (Image by Getty Images)

Victorian medicine: why the 19th century was a time of seismic medical change

The surgeon Robert Liston prepares to cut open a patient in the first half of the 19th century. Known as the “fastest knife in the west end”, Liston could remove a leg in less than 30 seconds. For most patients, however, the agony was more prolonged. (Wellcome Library, London)

An appointment at the house of death: the horror of the early Victorian hospital

The surgeon Robert Liston prepares to cut open a patient in the first half of the 19th century. Known as the “fastest knife in the west end”, Liston could remove a leg in less than 30 seconds. For most patients, however, the agony was more prolonged. (Wellcome Library, London)

"An enlightened turn": how medicine (and the vaccination) developed in Victorian Britain

Video podcastCocaine: a Victorian sensation

Video podcastFlorence Nightingale: life of the week

Bust of the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus.

The Antonine Plague: the killer disease that devastated the Roman empire

Video podcastThe plague that brought the Roman empire to its knees

The plague that brought the Roman empire to its knees

Gulag doctors: saving lives in Stalin's prison camps

US founding father Benjamin Franklin

Q&AWhy was Benjamin Franklin rumoured to be a serial killer?

The Decameron: sex, plague, and a medieval Love Island

Video podcastMedieval keep fit

Video podcastInside a Jim Crow asylum

Polish-born chemist Marie Curie

First World War

Marie Curie: a guide to the scientist's life, achievements and legacy

Climbing monks, wrestling kings and marching nuns: what people in the Middle Ages did to exercise

Medieval keep fit