Doctors’ disorders
Tim Radford revisits a dark age of quacks and quips in Bodies Politic: Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain 1650-1900 by Roy Porter
Where there’s mucus…there’s brass.
John Sutherland on why drug companies love the hay fever season.
Swallowing the company line
It's time we had proper, open trials on the Prozac family of antidepressants.
How to make a genius
The Medical Research Council's lab is a world leader. So what's its secret? By Lee Elliot Major
Laura was killed by anorexia. She was 80
Her granddaughter India Faulkner-Wiley on a condition that is just as likely to affect the elderly as the young.
Butt out
Theodore Dalrymple on why hospitals are wrong to stop patients smoking
Want to live to be 100?
The islanders of Okinawa live longer than anyone else on the planet. And they stay fit, active and happy long into old age. Now a new book reveals their secrets. Emily Wilson reports.
The fright of your life
Spiders, snakes, premature burial - Harriet Stewart faces our worst fears with Phobias: Fighting the Fear by Helen Saul and Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson
Slow burn
Most cancers are invisible, internal. Melanomas are on show, easy to spot. And they're quickly cured, as long as they are caught in time. So how come 1,500 of us are killed by them every year? Sarah Boseley on why checking your moles regularly could save your life.