Medicine and health

Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert and Edward Jenner

My history hero Dame Sarah Gilbert chooses Edward Jenner

Illustration showing woman receiving a caesarean section

General History

Q&A What are the origins of the caesarean section?

Illustration by @GlenMcIllustration

Q&A Which king thought he was made of glass

Reverend Spencer Parsons, head of the Chicago branch of the Clergy Consultation Service (CCS), an interfaith group dedicated to helping women obtain abortions before 'Roe v Wade'

The American clergy who helped women get abortions before Roe v Wade

A British poster dated 1917 designed by Bert Thomas. (Photo by Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo)

A brief history of smoking

Jesus is shown cleansing ten lepers in a scene from the Gospel According to Luke, illustrated in an 11th-century manuscript

General History

Leprosy How has the disease been perceived and treated through history?

Portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, showing his pronounced Habsburg jaw

Q&A What was the Habsburg jaw?

Pro-choice and pro-life advocates outside the Supreme Court in the 1970s, following the Roe v Wade decision. (Photo by Diana Walker//The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images)

A brief history of US abortion law, before and after Roe v Wade

A woodcut of the brain from Andreas Vesalius’s groundbreaking 1543 treatise On the Fabric of the Human Body

The Elizabethans’ complex relationship with mental wellbeing

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Pod Lindsay Fitzharris WL

First World War

Plastic surgery: transformed by WW1 . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Pod Kersten Hall WL

The birth of insulin: a scientific drama . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Dr DA Henderson examines children’s smallpox vaccination scars in Ethiopia

Why we should remember… Target Zero Day

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Black Death WL

Episode 6 How the pandemic transformed societies . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Catherine the Great: inoculation pioneer . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Black Death WL

Episode 5 Death, sin & spirituality . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.