In 1791 Elizabeth Blake tried to help her sister, New Yorker Catalina Hale, to end her years-long dependency on laudanum, […]
The Crisis of Overmedicating Foster Children
In 2009, Gabriel Myers, a seven-year-old foster child in Florida, hanged himself in the bathroom of his home due to […]
Breast Cancer Care: Sexism and Knowing versus Doing
A Rise in Unnecessary Breast Cancer Surgeries A troubling trend in breast cancer treatment has surgeons scratching their heads. Since […]
Mesmerism, (Im)propriety, and Power Over Women’s Bodies
Mesmerism had promise. According to accounts of popular demonstrations and parlor séances of the 1830s through the 1850s, a subject […]
Missing Leaf: Placing Cannabis in the American Herbal Renaissance
Given the daily barrage of distressing headlines, you will be forgiven for not noticing that the United States is in […]
Exhibition Review: Germ City: Microbes and the Metropolis
One hundred years after the 1918 flu epidemic, Germ City: Microbes and the Metropolis opened at the Museum of the […]
Witness to Pain: The Migraine Art Collection
“Good morning Katherine, I just wanted to let you know that we have located the Migraine Art.” For four years, […]
Pharmacological Innovation and the Desire to Simplify Postpartum Depression
At the end of March, Sage Therapeutics announced FDA approval for the intravenous and hospital-supervised use of their new postpartum […]
Mange, Morphine, and Deadly Disease: Medicine and Public Health in Red Dead Redemption 2
Spoiler warning: This essay discusses major plot points about the ending of Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s dead midnight, there’s […]
Femininity and Legitimacy: Policing Women and “Witches” in Post-Apartheid South Africa
One night in the late spring of 2008, in the South African town of Mondlo, an assembly of neighbors brought […]
