Inside our collections

The healing powers of different breathing methods are said to help with a range of health challenges, from asthma to PTSD. Effie Webb traces their spiritual origins and explores the modern proliferation of breathwork therapies.

Discover how chocolate morphed from a prized, spiritually significant commodity to a quasi-medicine, and finally to the sweet treat we eat almost daily.

Find out how activists and organisations working on AIDS information campaigns in 1980s Scotland used cartoons, kilts, and candid language to convey their message.

Find out how hydrogen peroxide has been used to do everything from investigate murders and propel rockets to treat teeth and bleach hair.

Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.

Wellcome’s Adrian Plau shares some the stories behind the Asian palm-leaf manuscripts in our collections. He reveals how British colonialism impacted this special form of knowledge transmission and the challenges involved in unearthing each manuscript’s origins and historical journey to Wellcome Collection.

Industrialisation brought visibly polluted air to the world’s cities, captured in various media from the 1800s. Angela Saward explores the methods used, and the messages the images conveyed.

Our centuries-old fear of disease-carrying “bad air” might have been modified by scientific advances, but it’s still liable to re-emerge under the right circumstances, as Kirsten Nicholson explains.

Part science lecture. part public spectacle, thanks to chemist Humphry Davy the 19th-century craze for inhaling nitrous oxide rapidly spread from the science laboratory to fashionable salons and homes of the day, and onto the popular stage.

Five bearded and moustachioed men choose five hirsute archive images to help them reflect on the way facial hair is linked with personality and identity.

Epidemiology is the systematic, data-driven study of health and disease in populations. But as historian Jacob Steere-Williams suggests, this most scientific of fields emerged in the 19th century imbued with a doctrine of Western imperialism – a legacy that continues to influence how we talk about disease.

The sanatorium treatment for tuberculosis was a curious combination of sunshine, fresh air, exercise and constant surveillance.

The Migraine Art Competition ran for seven years in the 1980s and resulted in over 500 unique and striking works of art that represent what it means to live with migraine.

Writer and artist Rose Ruane explores the paintings of Mary Bishop, created during a 30-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, which speak of constant medical surveillance and censorious self-examination.

Our ability to recall facts and experiential detail helps us understand, navigate, and make predictions about the world. Julia Nurse explores some of the techniques we have developed to help us to remember.

The ‘look’ of the evil eye is believed to bring bad luck, illness or even death. This ancient curse might be deliberate, inflicted with an envious glare, or it could be accidental, the result of undue attention or excessive praise.

When spectacles began to proliferate in the 19th century, some commentators were alarmed. Gemma Almond reveals how the Victorians came to embrace eyewear.

The Hindu concept of darshan means “divine revelation”, but it’s also about the multilayered ways in which we see the world around us. Adrian Plau explains how one image in a Panjabi manuscript relates to darshan, and why it’s so striking.