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Prison officers tried to regulate women’s minds and bodies and maintain a new disciplinary routine in the second half of the 1800s.

How did the Church rake in revenue from 14th-century sex regulations? Kate Lister explores a bishop’s lucrative rulebook.

Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.

Some surprising occupations pose hidden risks to dental health. Could your ivories be in particular peril?

Blood. Phlegm. Black bile. Yellow bile. The theory of the four humours informed many of Shakespeare's best-known characters, including the phlegmatic Falstaff.

Come on a journey from the first recorded condoms in the 16th century to the modern female condoms in the 1990s – and everything in between.

Discover how self-published zines have been used to share individual expriences of disability and disabled identity.

Our new exhibition explores humanity’s vital connection with freshwater – an essential source of life and pillar of good health for people and planet.

In the 1960s the NHS became Britain’s biggest employer. So to help fill all those jobs, the government brought in thousands of workers from abroad.

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

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.

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.

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.