Medicine and health

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Japanese school girls wear protective masks to guard against the influenza outbreak, February 1920. (Photo by Getty Images)

A history of pandemics: from Spanish Flu to Covid-19 . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Doctors tending to a patient, 14th century. (Photo by Getty Images)

Saturday lecture: Medieval disease and medicine . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An engraving depicting a scene of chaos at Bethlem Royal Hospital

Bethlem Royal Hospital: why did the infamous Bedlam asylum have such a fearsome reputation?

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The Great Plague, from a pictorial broadsheet of 1665-1666 (Photo by Getty Images)

Surviving the Great Plague . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A couple get amorous in this 14th-century illustration

Call the medieval sex doctor: how 7 problems might have been treated in the Middle Ages

Doctor treating a patient, from a 14th-century manuscript. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Elma Brenner on medieval wellbeing: “People in the Middle Ages were absolutely focused on staying healthy”

Dissection of human cadaver by physicians

Ask the medieval doctor: 6 ailments and their treatments

Clothes infected by the Black Death are burned in medieval Europe, c1340. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Black Death facts: your guide to “the worst catastrophe in recorded history”

Black and white image of the Victorian memorial statue of Florence Nightingale 1820-1910 in London, England, UK who was an English nurse known as 'the lady with the lamp, who cared for wounded soldiers in the Crimean War

Why Florence Nightingale was so much more than the ‘Lady with the Lamp’

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Florence Nightingale

The life and legend of Florence Nightingale . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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The effects of the disease known as the Black Death

History quiz: how much do you know about the Black Death? . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Dance of Death, printed by Jacob Meydenbach, Germany 1492. (Photo by Alamy)

The Black Death and social change . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Photograph of John Snow in 1856

The Broad Street cholera outbreak: how bad was it and how was it contained?

A portrait of Florence Nightingale

Nursing by numbers: how Florence Nightingale campaigned for better conditions

c1656: A plague doctor in protective clothing. The beak mask held spices thought to purify air, while the wand was used to avoid touching patients. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Q&A Why did 17th-century plague doctors wear peculiar beaked masks?