Doctor bleeding a patient

Medicine and health

Photo of female cyclist in 1885

Q&AWere there health scares caused by new technology in the past?.

Man smoking a pipe, early 17th century

Q&AWhen was tobacco first thought to be dangerous?.

Photo of pipe and tobacco

Q&ADid people smoke anything before tobacco was discovered?

Snail poultices and blood potions: 9 weird medieval medicines

Photo of marble relief depicting Hippocrates

Why did Hippocrates eat earwax?

Diorite stela inscribed with the laws of King Hammurabi of Babylon, around 3,800 years ago. Hammurabi sits enthroned at top of the stela. (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Q&AWho first attempted to regulate medicine?

Top 10 Plantagenet podcasts – from the Black Death to Richard III

An illustration of a Tudor street

“Mooke, fylthe and other vyle things”: Tudor dirt and dung.

Illustration of the Zodiac Man

General ancient history

Q&AWhy did physicians ‘bleed’ their patients?

An Egyptian mummy receiving a CT scan

Looking inside ancient Egyptian mummies

The Black Death and Tudor adventurers.

History explorer: the catastrophe of the Black Death.

Disability history

British microbiologist and discoverer of penicillin, Alexander Fleming. (Photo by Ipsumpix/Corbis via Getty Images)

A big day in history: Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.

The end of slavery and headaches in history.

My history hero: Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910).

Two women from South America. Six centuries ago South American civilisations matched the west in some respects. (Getty Images)

The wonder of the west

A woman puts a foundling, or her own unwanted child, into a revolving doorway in a hospital or orphanage wall, intended for unwanted children. (Getty Images)

A mother's love: tokens left with London's foundling babies.

Illustration of couple with bubonic plague

Where the Black Death happened: 9 places connected to the plague.

A pregnant woman receives a piece of beef

"A taste for husbands' buttocks": the bizarre history of pregnancy cravings.

Some household cures would aim to rebalance the body's humours

Household medicine: sickness, salves and skillets.