Watercolour painting by A.O. Lamplough depicting the banks of the Nile in Egypt, showcasing serene landscapes and artistic beauty.

In 1950, an American journalist popularised the term ‘brainwashing’, arguing that a new amalgam of technology, medicine and ideology was allowing an onslaught on people’s minds. In this abridged ...

Specious ideas and assumptions about intelligence that were born during the great flourishing of eugenics well over 100 years ago still inform the British education system today, as Nazlin Bhimani ...

Laura Grace Simpkins attempts to untangle some uncomfortable truths about the social and environmental costs of making her medication.

Posters by artists who turned their art into activism to support their communities and raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s.

Like everyone, sex workers sometimes need medical or mental health support. But shame and stigma seriously affect attitudes and access.

The efficacy of antibiotics and the demands of work mean we rarely convalesce after an illness. But in the past it was an important part of the return to health.

Nymphomania has traditionally been defined as an increased and therefore disturbing sexual drive. It was thought of as a serious medical condition particularly affecting women, who were often given ...

A 19th-century campaigner who condemned the practice of keeping a dead person at home before the funeral started a gradual trend for outsourcing the preparation and storage of a body. But as a ...

Dr Annabel Sowemimo explores the web of connections between early Black British doctors, the role of empire in West Africa and the pernicious reach of scientific racism.

Light has a big impact on our bodies’ sense of time, and light pollution is increasingly affecting our health. But researchers are discovering how urban light design can limit these effects.

The closure of Medicine Man is the result of several years’ research and reflection, and is the next step in updating how we display items from the collections.