February 2021 (Issue 91)

'The Reward of Cruelty', 1751, by William Hogarth (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

“An enlightened turn”: how medicine (and the vaccination) developed in 18th-century Britain

Circulation of the blood, 1628. English physician William Harvey (1578-1657) was the first to correctly describe the mechanism whereby blood is circulated in the body. Diagram showing the existence of valves in veins. From Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus, by William Harvey. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

A medical renaissance?

The opthalmoscope

Victorian medicine: why the 19th century was a time of seismic medical change