Doctor bleeding a patient

Medicine and health

Habsburg royals displaying the distinctive jaw that became a hallmark of their intermarrying to stay in power. (Images by Getty)

What was the Habsburg jaw?

A depiction of Roman communal toilets

Tales of the toilet: a historical A–Z.

A selection of illustrations of medical procedures, including childbirth and someone vomiting, around a circular chart that depicts flasks of different coloured urine

Marvellous medieval medicine: why their curious cures were better than you think.

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.