Medicine and health

A group of men observe a body lying on a table.

Early-modern cannibal doctors: why mummified corpse was considered medicine

Dr Freya Gowrley reveals how Georgian satirists used images of fatness to comment on the anxieties of the age (Image from Getty Images)

Why were the Georgians fixated with fatness?

Joep de Beer of Holland throws a javelin at the Stoke Mandeville Games

Q&A When and where were the first Paralympics held?

Fern Riddell

Contraception, consent & erotic connection: sex through history

Professor Barry Doyle explains what kind of treatment you could expect If you were ill before the National Health Service was founded in 1948. (Image by Getty Images)

Healthcare before the NHS

Elinor Cleghorn traces the long history of the misdiagnosis and mistreatment of women’s health issues, from the ancient world to the modern day. (Image by Getty Images)

From hysteria to wandering wombs: women and medicine through history

Joseph Bazalgette, a civil engineer who planned a groundbreaking new drainage system to serve London

Joseph Bazalgette: how the man who transformed London paved the way for your loo

How has the way in which we understand the menopause evolved over time? (Illustration by Megan Reddi)

A time of change: a history of our understanding of the menopause

Pregnant woman before giving birth in the 13th century

16 things you (probably) didn’t know about the rituals behind royal births, from the medieval era to the present day

Illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare

“Make love not midnight snacks”: a social history of slimming clubs

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Bloodied feet, outrageous breasts and the sinister power of a hair cut: a history of the body

Triumphant Death chases Londoners from their city

How 17th-century London reacted to the Great Plague

Second century relief portraying a Roman ophthalmologist examining a patient. (Photo By DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini via Getty Images)

Roman medicine: 6 ways people stayed healthy in ancient Rome

A set of dentures belonging to George Washington. The first US president wore fake teeth for much of his life

Q&A Did George Washington have wooden teeth?

A Red Cross worker in the United States, 1918

Spanish flu: the virus that changed the world