Doctor bleeding a patient

Medicine and health

The 16th-century painting, Triumph of Death, by Jan Brueghel the Elder depicts an army of skeletons ravaging the Earth (Photo by akg-images)

6 moments when diseases drastically altered human history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How germs shaped human history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Pregnancy & childbirth in the 19th century. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Curious cures for medieval maladies. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

1450 farmworkers planting seeds and harrowing a ploughed field.

Medieval wellness: how our New Year’s resolutions mirror the Middle Ages. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Elizabeth Garret Anderson seated at a desk reading

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson: the first woman to qualify as a doctor in Britain

Surgical history: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

General History

From bone setting in ancient Egypt to organ transplants: a brief history of surgery

American psychiatry: a tortured history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Q&AWhat are the roots of dentistry?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Circulation of the blood, 1628. English physician William Harvey (1578-1657) was the first to correctly describe the mechanism whereby blood is circulated in the body. Diagram showing the existence of valves in veins. From Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus, by William Harvey. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

A medical renaissance?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A medieval illustration showing a doctor bleeding a patient

General History

A history of medicine14 surprising facts

Hidden livesVictorian fasting girls

Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert and Edward Jenner

My history heroDame Sarah Gilbert chooses Edward Jenner. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Ilustration showing thorned brambles growing up the nervous system of a pink torso, the brambles at the bottom of the piece are growing in the shape of a uterus, and there are blackberries where the ovaries should be. A blue, gloved hand is coming in from the left to pluck at the ovary blackberry, and another gloved hand coming in from the right is using gardening secateurs to cut one of the branches. A metaphor for endometriosis, and in a broader sense, women's medical neglect and oppression

The gender pain gap: perceptions of women's health through history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration showing woman receiving a caesarean section

General History

Q&AWhat are the origins of the caesarean section?

Q&AWhich 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. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

LeprosyHow has the disease been perceived and treated through history?

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. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

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. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

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

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

Domenico Fetti painting illustrating a melancholic woman in the early 17th century

The Anatomy of Melancholy: how Robert Burton helped shape our understanding of the mind. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Episode 4Medieval medical thinking. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.