Hospital emergency room entrance sign

Medicalizing Domestic Violence

What happens when experts position domestic violence inside a biomedical model of care?
Cordyceps militaris

“There’s Gold in Them Thar Fungi”: Cordyceps as Cash Crop

A fungus in the genus Cordyceps has us running scared. But some of its species are worth more than their weight in gold.
A chemist examining a flask of urine

Early Doctors Diagnosed Disease by Looking at Urine

When uroscopy became trendy, it caused a minor scandal within the early medical profession.
A lichen in a paper coffee cup

Lichen Latte, Anyone?

Irrigation and antibiotics might be appropriate treatments for an animal bite—but maybe you’d prefer to sip a steaming lichen-and-pepper latte instead.
The interior of a Chinese pharmacy in Los Angeles, 1907

The Allure of Chinese Medicine 

Capitalizing on stereotypes earned Chinese-American practitioners patients, but it also helped keep them confined to the margins of American society.
Cretan rockrose

Plant of the Month: Cretan Rockrose

Cretan rockrose has been used as a medicine for millennia. Its unusual harvesting methods were documented by the ancient historian Herodotus.
Animal magnetism

Mesmerizing Labor

The man who introduced mesmerism to the US was a slave-owner from Guadeloupe, where planters were experimenting with “magnetizing” their enslaved people.
An illustration of elderberry

Plant of the Month: Elderberry

The recent entrance of elderberry into mainstream success is marked by an increasing popular desire to engage with traditional, “natural” remedies.
A stained glass window depicting Hildegard von Bingen at Église Sainte-Foy, Alsace

Abortion Remedies from a Medieval Catholic Nun(!)

Hildegard von Bingen wrote medical texts describing how to prepare abortifacients.
An advertisement for Burdock Blood Bitters

The Bitter Truth About Bitters

A bottle of bitters from about 1918 had significant amounts of alcohol and lead—and not a trace of the supposed active ingredient.