A new study has revealed that the consumption of tobacco left a detectable mark on human bone structure. By analyzing skeletal remains dating back as far as the 12th century, researchers have...
Life was never a guarantee in the distant past. Before the advent of modern medicine, people had to rely on a variety of healing methods, hoping to come out on top in the struggle against deadly...
Konstantine Panegyres / The Conversation According to the World Obesity Atlas , 42% of the global population will be overweight or obese in 2025. Lack of physical activity is one of the primary...
A fascinating study of the skeletal remains of ancient Egyptian scribes from the third millennium BC has revealed the physical costs of this job. While the type of work they did might seem relatively...
Few surviving Roman installations are as popular in England as the Roman Baths , which can be found in the appropriately named city of Bath, Somerset . Nearly 2,000 years after these public...
By Konstantine Panegyres /The Conversation Many people today worry about how to find time to keep fit and healthy in the midst of their busy lives. Believe it or not, but this was also a problem in...
Heart disease is often viewed as a modern malady, fueled by sedentary lifestyles, poor dietary habits, and the stresses of modern life. However, a groundbreaking study led by Saint Luke’s Mid America...
In an article authored by Craig Considine and published in The Huffington Post , the veil is lifted on a profound historic oversight in some educational curriculums: the neglect of Muslim...
Thomas Jeffries /The Conversation The mention of ancient Egypt usually conjures images of colossal pyramids and precious, golden tombs. But as with most civilizations, the invisible world of...
At a time when human beings are suffering from a host of illnesses caused by stress and modern-day living, the need for ancient wisdom has never been more important. In fact, many people have become...
Bacterial poisoning via food and water – but also via contact such as kisses – caused a lot of suffering during the Stone Age. Diseases that today can be treated with antibiotics were then fatal, a...
Pragya Agarwal /The Conversation In the medieval period, medical science was still dominated by the ancient writings of Hippocrates from the fifth century and Galen of Pergamon from the second...
Getting high off toxic solvents and chemicals to induce mind-altering effects is a public health concern today. But dial back 5,000 years, in the Iberian Peninsula, and groups of women adorned in...
As long as life has existed on earth, so have issues associated with maintaining health and the remediation of disease. Today, when many of us get sick, our first course of action is to call the...
A brilliant and comprehensive new study has analyzed the DNA of almost 10,000 people from ancient and pre-modern societies, and found 6 cases of Down syndrome in past or ancient human populations...
By Nicholas Bourne /The Conversation Many of us want to live long, happy and healthy lives. Yet it’s often confusing to know the best way to achieve this, and many aspects of modern, westernized...
Leigh Hopper /University of Southern California You might think age-related dementia has been with us all along, stretching back to the ancient world. But a new analysis of classical Greek and Roman...
When the Black Death or bubonic plague epidemic ravaged London between the autumn of 1348 and the spring of 1350, it may have wiped out as much as half the city’s population. While the victims of...
Vlad Dracul, the infamous medieval Romanian ruler known as Vlad the Impaler and the inspiration for the character of Count Dracula , is considered one of the most bloodthirsty rulers in human history...
The skeletal remains of a woman who lived in Portugal between the 14th and 19th centuries show that she suffered a physical injury so severe that it caused an extraordinarily large growth to appear...
In order to understand the history of probiotics, one needs to imagine a time before modern medicine , when people looked to nature to heal their ailments. Many ancient civilizations consumed...
Is it time to kill the term “placebo effect”? A researcher looking at questionable medieval medicines, that are today shunned as placebos, has shown how early physicians triggered patient’s brains...
Visit any park in China over the last few hundred years and you’re likely to see dozens of people practicing qigong. What started as a traditional Chinese treatment over 4,000 years ago has become a...
The British Museum houses a tablet which provides a peek into work-life balance in ancient Egypt. It documents the number of sick days and why 40 workers took time off from their workplace in 1250 BC...
