Legionnaires’ Disease, an Illness of Affluence
Legionnaires’ is the first communicable disease of modern wealth, thriving in the interstitial spaces of our built environment.
Call the Midwives—Assuming Any Are Left
While midwife-attended deliveries are the norm in the United Kingdom, they’re the exception in the United States. Time was, this difference wasn’t so stark.
Francis Bacon’s Fables of Life Extension
In his retellings of ancient myths, Bacon called for research to extend human lifespans, but only if those longer lives were spent in the pursuit of knowledge.
Raccoons in the Laboratory
The lab rat is now a symbol of science, but psychologists once believed that raccoons presented unique potential in the study of animal intelligence.
Defining and Redefining Intersex
The transatlantic circulation of ideas between Baltimore and Zurich consolidated and standardized treatments of intersex infants in the 1950s.
Rosalind Franklin’s Methods of Discovery
Franklin’s strategy for analyzing images of DNA molecules forces us to reconsider our definition of “scientific discovery,” argues Michelle G. Gibbons.
What’s a Mental Health Diagnosis For?
Following the publication of the DSM-5, mental health professionals debated the expansion of “mental illness” to include normal parts of the human condition.
Haunted Soldiers in Mesopotamia
In ancient Mesopotamia, many medical disorders were attributed to ghosts, including mental problems faced by men who had spent years at war.
Arakawa and Gins: An Eternal Architecture
With the Reversible Destiny Foundation, architect-philosophers Arakawa and Gins created disquieting designs meant to defeat mortality.
Why Not Just Be a Nurse?
To be taken seriously as physicians, women doctors in nineteenth-century Britain felt the need to distinguish themselves from others of their gender.