Distillations magazine
Health & Medicine
Bodies, minds, and the things that help and harm them
The Story of Serum Therapy
How a 19th-century invention could save lives today.
Who Needs a Mammogram?
In the fight against breast cancer, entrenched interests and outmoded ideas may be hurting patients.
Medicinal Leeches and Where to Find Them
The rise, fall, and resurrection of the humble leech.
Old Drug Ketamine Offers New Hope for Chronic Pain Sufferers
Will stigma and cost undermine the therapy’s promise?
Our Oldest, Deadliest Foe
Tracing the immense misery wreaked by the mosquito.
Searching for Schizophrenia
In the late 1960s an international contingent of psychiatrists took up a monumental task: making schizophrenia mean the same thing to doctors around the world.
Smallpox and the Long Road to Eradication
It’s one thing to make a scientific discovery, but making it count is another thing entirely.
Interview: Sangeeta Bhatia
The biomedical researcher talks about her work using nanotechnology to detect and treat disease.
Heat Therapy
Humans have a masochistic love of capsaicin, a molecule responsible for the burn in hot peppers. That connection could be a key to pain relief.
The Death of Jesse Gelsinger, 20 Years Later
Gene editing promises to revolutionize medicine. But how safe is safe enough for the patients testing these therapies?
Exhuming the Flu
Remembering the Spanish flu 100 years later.
Probing the Mysteries of Human Digestion
The strange, sometimes sickening things we’ve done to understand what goes on inside our guts.
Opioids’ Devastating Return
The latest painkiller revival has left a trail of bodies, with no end in sight.
Old Brew, New Brew
Fermentation is the key to many of the lifesaving drugs we have today.
A Study In Scarlet
Warfarin started life as a rat poison, and for all its success the anticoagulant remains as dangerous as its origin suggests.
Hard Work and Happenstance
Where do new drugs come from? And why do so many fail?
From Barbers and Butchers to Modern Surgeons
How Joseph Lister’s application of germ theory revolutionized surgery in the mid-19th century.
Cat Craze
Do cats mess with your brain?