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World AIDS Day talk: global visions in poster art
World AIDS Day (1 December) is a good opportunity to revisit the much used and, it seems, well known, collection of AIDS posters in the Wellcome Library, which is now freely available online (search the Library catalogues for access): The collection,… Continue reading
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More from the EPUK archive: a cow with a gas mask
In December 1952 London was caught in the grip of a suffocating smog which lasted for four long days. Visibility was reduced to as little as a few yards and transport became impossible. A performance of La Traviata at the… Continue reading
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Cleaning up the ice cream triangle
During the early 20th century the Medical Officers of Health (MOH) for the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury made a concerted effort to reduce the risk of illness from contaminated ice cream. Dr George Newman was the MOH for the area and the… Continue reading
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There’s something in the air
It is easy to take the air we breathe for granted, but its quality has been ensured by tireless campaigning from societies such as Environmental Protection UK and its predecessors: the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, the Smoke Abatement League of… Continue reading
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What might you find in Canary Wharf?
The Association of Medical Microbiologists (AMM) was founded in 1983 to further the science and practice of medical microbiology (a branch of medicine concerned with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases). Amongst the recently catalogued papers of the AMM is a… Continue reading
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Dying for a Smoke
We are now midway through Stoptober 2013. This month marks the second year of the hugely successful NHS campaign encouraging smokers to quit en masse for 28 days. An apt occasion, then, to revisit this engaging cartoon from the late… Continue reading
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Having a ‘typewritten conversation’
The records of the Pioneer Health Centre Peckham, along with the personal papers of its originators, George Scott Williamson and Innes Pearse, came into the Wellcome Library over a period of years from a variety of different sources, having ended up dispersed… Continue reading
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By the banks of the New River
With the current resurgence of interest in London’s lost rivers, there’s a case to be made that perhaps the capital’s most unknown waterway is actually hidden in plain sight. Whilst your Fleets, Tyburns and Effras have the occluded air of… Continue reading
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AIDS in Zimbabwe: a designer’s memoir
In 1999 the Wellcome Library acquired this AIDS poster in the colours of the Zimbabwean flag (red, green, yellow and black), but had no idea of the story behind its creation until this year, when we were contacted by its… Continue reading
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Call for participants: testing the Medical Officer of Health reports website
Interested in the public health history of London? Curious about quantifying disease? Enjoy having a chat about websites and how you might use them? We’re looking for 10 people to help us test a prototype of our JISC-funded London Medical… Continue reading