Avoiding the plagueIt was 350 years ago this summer that the Great Plague took hold in London. What methods did patients and doctors employ to try to keep themselves safe?…
Resurrecting antique aleA microbrewery in Finland’s Baltic Sea archipelago of Ã…land has recently launched a beer with a 19th century recipe. The formula is derived from the chemical analysis of contaminated booze recovered from a schooner that was shipwrecked some 170 years ago.…
Pharmacy and the Great Exhibition of 1851 Pharmacy’s Great Exhibition was an opportunity missed, writes Stuart Anderson.…
Using a mummy as a medicine Different types of mummy could be used to make tincture, treacle, elixir or balsam, which could, in turn, be used for treating different types of affliction.…
Yawning warning: why do we yawn?Yawning is contagious, even between members of different species. But why is it that we need to yawn?…
The pharmacist who helped Lincoln’s assassinPharmacist David Edgar Herold helped John Wilkes Booth to escape after he had assassinated Abraham Lincoln on 14 April 1865.…
Winifred Atwell: pharmacist and world renowned musicianPianist Winifred Atwell, who sold more than 30 million records, was also a qualified pharmacist.…
Dissecting forensics: review of an exhibition A new exhibition, ‘Forensics: the anatomy of crime’, at the Wellcome Collection, London, aims to examine the forensic procedure from the crime scene to the courtroom. Emma Page takes a look.…
How the leopard got his spots: Turing’s theoryAlthough Rudyard Kipling had a fictional reason for why leopards have spots, computer science pioneer Alan Turing discovered the real explanation.…
The history of snake oilThe term “snake oil” is used to describe any worthless pseudo-medical remedy promoted as a cure for various illnesses. However, snake oil itself may have a variety of medical uses.…
