Doctor bleeding a patient

Medicine and health

Turning points1348: The Black Death.

A woman slops here chamberpot from a window onto pedestrians in the street below in this woodcut

Were medieval cities really filthy?.

A 14th-century illustration of a farmer leading a pack animal through the ice and snow

The surprisingly modern Middle Ages.

Q&AWhat is gaol fever and how was it caused and spread?

A mother receives her newborn baby in a c1490 text written for Henry VII. Childbirth in the Middle Ages exposed both mother and child to great peril but, writes Elma Brenner, midwives had the expertise to intervene when complications arose. (Photo by Bridgeman)

The medieval childbirth guide: 6 tips for pregnant mothers in the Middle Ages

Giving birth in the 17th century.

Gulielma Lister: the female botanist who became the queen of slime moulds.

An allegorical depiction of the plague in ancient Rome, an angel batters down a door while people lie sick on the ground

The reign of Roman disease: why did disease hit a flourishing empire?.

Plagues of our past.

German doctor Otto Warburg at work in his laboratory

Otto Warburg: the Jewish doctor and the Nazi war on cancer.

An image of Hippocrates from the 14th century, sitting and holding a book open in front of him

Hippocrates and humours: medicine in ancient Greece

From transfusions of lambs’ blood to tooth replacements, Paul Craddock chronicles the strange history of transplant surgery

Transplant surgery: an eye-opening history.

Dancers in a nightclub

Aids: the epidemic that changed Britain

A 'teacher' in Milgram's study is instructed to administer an electric shock to a 'learner'.

Experiments in evil: the shocking efforts to understand the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Illustration showing the traders who made a fortune during the wake of the Black Death

Merchants of doom: the traders who profited from the Black Death.

Emma Dabiri“Anarcha Westcott should be hailed as a ‘mother of gynaecology’”.

A medieval illustration showing a doctor bleeding a patient

QuizCan you spot the real historical remedies?.

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

Q&AWhen and where were the first Paralympics held?

Mary Wortley Montagu: the scourge of smallpox

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

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

Why were the Georgians fixated with fatness?.

Elinor CleghornThe History of Unwell Women.

Fern Riddell

Contraception, consent & erotic connection: sex through history.

Healthcare before the NHS.

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

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

"Make love not midnight snacks": a social history of slimming clubs.

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.