Tales from the past

A look back at the history of medicine and health.

Displaying 1 - 12 of 63

Impression during the indoor excavation in the music hall of the Stadtcasino. Credit: Archäologische Bodenforschung Basel-Stadt; photograph by Adrian Jost.

Mass grave reveals who really died in Switzerland’s last plague outbreak

15 Apr 2026

5 min read

Research summary

Medic gives a shot to soldier near front line (SC 361229), National Museum of Health and Medicine

Defensive manoeuvres: the vaccines the military made

2 Apr 2026

14 min read

Vaccine development

George Washignton, original series painted by Gilbert Stuart. Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

How George Washington weaponized smallpox inoculation

16 Mar 2026

11 min read

Cross-posts Outbreaks COVID-19

Giovanni Boccaccio’s “The plague of Florence in 1348.” Visual: Wellcome Collection

Book Review: How Sickness Has Transformed Civilization

18 Feb 2026

7 min read

Cross-posts Book club

Human skull. Credit: Unsplash/Mathew MacQuarrie

Did climate chaos unleash the Black Death?

10 Dec 2025

5 min read

Climate change

Gabriel Falloppius explaining one of his discoveries to the Cardinal Duke of Ferrara. Credit: WellcomeTrust, CC BY-SA

How anatomical names can carry hidden histories of power and exclusion

28 Oct 2025

5 min read

Cross-posts

1990s UK Whooping Coughs Vaccinations Magazine Advert. Credit: Retro AdArchives

The 1970s whooping cough vaccine scare

27 Oct 2025

17 min read

Whooping cough Vaccine information Vaccine safety

Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. Credit: Barbieri et al., Current Biology

DNA reveals the real killers that brought down Napoleon’s army

24 Oct 2025

3 min read

Portrait of Dr Robert Watt by Henry Raeburn. Credit left: Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. The treatise on the history, nature, and treatment of chincough. Credit right: Wellcome Collection

Whooping cough: a history

5 Aug 2025

13 min read

Whooping cough

Boy in Emerson respirator (iron lung) in Herman Keifer Hospital, Detroit, Michigan, due to polio. Viewing photographer (Joe Clark) in machine's mirror. Ca. 1955. Credit: Otis Historical Archives National Museum of Health and Medicine

A 'new medical age': 70 years of polio vaccination

11 Apr 2025

11 min read

Polio Innovation

Grin and bear it: new research suggests the Vikings were sicker than we thought

19 Mar 2025

4 min read

Research summary

The Battle of Hattin, from a 13th-century manuscript of the Chronica Majora depicting the capture of the True Cross by Saladin. Credit: Matthew Paris - Cambridge, Corpus Christi College.

Giant-killers: 7 historic deaths and the diseases that did it

14 Feb 2025

19 min read

Typhoid Tetanus Diphtheria

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