Medicine
TB is back with a vengeance
If you were a teenager before 2005, one reminder of tuberculosis in British life is that small circular scar on…
Eugenics will never work — thankfully
The creation of a master race is an ancient idea which, thankfully, can never work, says Sam Leith
Why has medicine been so slow to improve over the centuries?
Medicine was founded by Hippocrates in the 5th century BC. Doctors continued to study the Hippocratic texts into the 19th…
Why cocktails are superior to wine
I often argue that, in theory at least, well-made cocktails are indisputably better than wines costing 20 times more. My…
What did the Romans ever do for us?
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is planning to install a statue of John Chilembwe in Trafalgar Square. Mr Chilembwe…
How the Lancet lost our trust
How the Lancet lost our trust
The hidden death toll of lockdown
The last patient I treated was 105 years old. She has lived through two world wars, a depression and at…
In an age of science, why are face masks a matter of opinion?
In 1846 Vienna, as across much of the world, a relatively new disease called puerperal (or ‘childbed’) fever had reached…
The truth behind 'do not resuscitate' orders
Coronavirus is revealing many good things about our society: the number of people willing to volunteer to help tackle the outbreak…
On the NHS front line, we’re braced for what’s coming
The fight against coronavirus has only just begun
Do Jews think differently?
Sixteen years into a stop-go production saga, I got a call from the director of The Song of Names with…
The snake-oil salesmen who prey on schizophrenics
Schizophrenia is the psychiatric illness about which the most misconceptions abound. It’s not so much the ‘negative’ symptoms that cause…
Letters: Of course Brexit is David Cameron’s fault
All Cameron’s fault Sir: In this time of febrile political speculation, there can have been few more arresting subject headings…
Arthritis, nerve pain and chronic fatigue: my life with Lyme disease
Some medical experts claim that Lyme disease is worse than cancer. It’s not a competition, but I do know one…
A warning to those who argue that we live in a visual society
‘Can one person really grasp the significance of what another person has been through?’ asks Dr Rita Charon in this…
Patients like being told they need an operation. It doesn’t mean they do
In George Bernard Shaw’s play The Doctor’s Dilemma, written early last century, the knife-happy surgeon invents a nut-shaped abdominal organ,…
Vital signs
Exhibit A. It is 1958 and you are barrelling down a dual carriageway; the 70 mph limit is still eight…
Playing Stalin for laughs
Christopher Wilson’s new novel is much easier to enjoy than to categorise. And ‘enjoy’ is definitely the right word, even…
Warning: rationality could be bad for your health
Almost every popular commercial product owes its success to two different qualities. First, it does the job it is ostensibly…
A deadly role reversal
Who would you trust to take a blade to your brain? Medical schools and hospitals, arbiters of this outrageous intimacy,…
Jeremy Hunt is spoiling for a fight. He’s picked the wrong one
Jeremy Hunt is right to fight for NHS reform. But he’s going after the wrong people, on the wrong issue
The ME lobby is just a symptom of our stupidity about mental illness
Do you ever wake up worried that you have tiny fibres growing beneath your skin, all along your spinal column?…
Make-up, chocolates, deodorant and sand: two weeks in cancer scares
Killer facts The World Health Organisation added processed meats to its list of ‘known’ carcinogens. A few of the other…
One in ten British babies will soon be born via IVF. So why is it taboo?
Pretty soon, one in ten British babies will begin life in a Petri dish. So why is it still such a taboo subject?
New mothers deserve something better than NCT classes
Why women are seeking alternatives to NCT antenatal classes
