Medicine and health

A Red Cross worker in the United States wears a mask to reduce the risk of contracting or spreading the disease in 1918. Though doctors didn’t initially understand the nature of the infectious agent, ‘social distancing’ helped slow the propagation of the flu. (Photo by Paul Thompson/FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Spanish flu: the virus that changed the world

100 women who changed the world results. (Images by Getty Images)

100 Women Who Changed the World: your reactions

A 12th-century English manuscript shows a surgeon operating on a patient's eye. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Kill or cure? 10 medieval medical practices and their effectiveness

Nurses serve lunch to patients at a Birmingham hospital, 1939. (Photo by Humphrey Spender/Picture Post/Getty Images)

Paying for healthcare: life in Britain before the ‘free’ NHS

Marie Curie in her laboratory. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

First World War

Marie Curie (1867–1934): her life, achievements and legacy

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100 Women Who Changed the World: the results

A New York opium den. Although US legislators cracked down on opiates in the early 20th century, organised crime networks continued to fuel the illegal trade in narcotics. (Photo by Getty Images)

Books interview with Lucy Inglis: “Opium has held mankind’s hand since the beginning”

From The Library

A doctor examines a patient's urine in an illustration from the 13th century. Uroscopy, the study of urine, was one of the medieval physician's most effective tools, and is still employed today. (Photo by Bridgman Art Library)

Medieval medicine: killer or cure?

From The Library

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Video: An introduction to the Black Death

Clothes infected by the Black Death being burnt, c 1340. An illustration from the 'Romance of Alexander' in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

10 facts about the Black Death

Welsh Labour politician Aneurin Bevan making a speech on the freedom of the press at a meeting of the National Council of Civil Liberties at Central Hall, Westminster, London, in 1942. (Photo by Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images)

My history hero: Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan (1897–1960)

From The Library

Listening in: a doctor uses a stethoscope to examine a patient in 1948. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

The birth pains of the NHS

From The Library

A man sneezes into a handkerchief, c1936. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

6 facts about the history of hay fever

The bikini was showcased to the world for the first time in July 1946. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

8 weird things that happened in July through history