Tag: anniversaries

Every country has its own day for fireworks, it seems: November 5th in the UK, July 4th in the USA, July 14th in France. In Switzerland it’s today, 1st August, and anyone standing on the southern shore of Lac Léman… Continue reading

William Makepeace Thackeray, Victorian novelist probably best known for his panoramic work Vanity Fair and its anti-heroine, Becky Sharp, was born in Calcutta on 18 July 1811. While his work does not, on the whole, reflect the medical profession of… Continue reading

This print (left) sits in the Wellcome Library among a group of Dutch posters about the use of recreational drugs. It is exceptional for its casual production values: scraps of paper torn out of a notebook, containing incoherent verses which… Continue reading

This week is National Music Therapy week in the UK: running from June 6th toJune 11th, and organised by the British Association for Music Therapy (BAMT). Music therapy harnesses the ability of music to express things in a non-verbal way,… Continue reading

He didn’t discover a new element, spot a new star in the night sky nor make a major medical breakthrough, but there’s little doubt Sir Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (1561-1626), is one of the most influential figures in… Continue reading

The treatise has now been seven years before the public, has been most acutely investigated by those best competent to test its value, and the first physiologists of our day have judged the discoveries which it unfolds as worthy to… Continue reading

The thirteenth British ‘National Curry Week’ is now upon us, a timely reminder of our long-standing love affair with exotic food. Last year we reflected on the many early recipes for curry to be found in the Wellcome Library’s books… Continue reading

On this day 115 years ago, Wilhelm Röntgen became the first person to observe X-Rays. Like many a groundbreaking discovery, this process occurred rather fortuitously. Röntgen, a German physics professor, was in his laboratory in Wurzburg, Germany, testing if cathode… Continue reading

On this day in 1890 Vincent Van Gogh committed suicide using a gun he had previously brandished at the doctor treating his increasingly difficult mental state – Paul Ferdinand Gachet. Gachet had encouraged Van Gogh to create an etching and… Continue reading

Fifty years ago today, Aneurin Bevan MP died of cancer at the age of 62. His legacy, of course, is very much alive: as the UK enters a round of what we are warned will be ferocious cuts in government… Continue reading