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From safe-use guides to needle exchange schemes, Harry Shapiro reflects on 40 years of drug harm reduction in the UK.

Whose responsibility is it to prevent accidental burns and scalds in the home? Shane Ewen’s research shows that it’s everyone’s concern.

The beautiful and mysterious illustrations in medieval herbals convey a wealth of knowledge about the plants they portray.

Iconic graphic design devised to admonish, amuse, inform and empower.

From anti-masturbation rings to a tonsil guillotine, these specially selected pieces might make your skin crawl.

An uncanny resemblance to today’s Twitter tiffs characterises a 17th-century argument about demons. Read what happened when the printing presses went into overdrive.

In pre-internet days, phone boxes became a patchwork of ‘tart cards’ offering sexual services. Find out about the clandestine world they hint at.

Focusing on three 19th-century women’s case notes, Millie van der Byl Williams explores how our definition of dementia has changed.

There’s something unexpectedly flirtatious and flamboyant about the smart young people featured in these French postcards.

Artist Beth Hopkins explains how she used her experience of researching the Adamson Collection to create an embroidered wall hanging.

An 11th-century poem of love, lust and possibly gruesome death still resonates today.

With few sources of effective help available when treating an injured patient, the medieval physician could instead stage a healing ceremony using a practical how-to guide he carried with him.

Is childbirth an athletic feat? Kathleen Vaughan certainly thought so, developing the first modern exercise class for women in pregnancy.

Fish, lute players and defaced demons: marginal doodles in some of Europe’s first printed books provide a tantalising glimpse into the late-medieval mind.

Academics on hallucinogenics, kids sniffing glue, and Scientologists recruiting drug users keen to kick the habit. Delve into Wellcome’s recently acquired DrugScope archive.

The ‘Expecting: Birth, Belief and Protection’ display features a rare medieval birth scroll and explores protective practices and beliefs around pregnancy, childbirth and infertility past and present.

Researcher and zine-maker Lea Cooper explores pandemic zines made by people who were often familiar with “staying at home” because of disability or chronic illness.

Using humour, personal experience and political activism to explore the bloody reality of menstruation.

Books, sex workers’ cards, a bomb... the Retrieval Team gives us a glimpse behind the scenes.

Chubby little winged boys known as putti frequently adorn scientific illustrations. Sometimes portrayed as reverent and sometimes cheeky, they guide our pursuit of knowledge.