Distillations magazine
Health & Medicine
Bodies, minds, and the things that help and harm them
Our Mutual Friend
Candy stores in the 19th century sold sweets as deadly as they were delicious.
The Birds, the Bees, and the Froggies
A globe-hopping doctor and a weird amphibian produce a fast, inexpensive pregnancy test.
The Age of Scurvy
In a time of warring empires and transoceanic voyages, sailors dreaded scurvy more than any other disease.
A Recipe for Good Health
John Harvey Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitarium was at the intersection of new ideas of religion, health, and nutrition.
A Killer of a Cure
For more than a century ozone therapy has been a source of false hope for the sick and ill-gotten gains for the crooked.
Chemical Hope
A molecule used in antifreeze may one day heal damaged spinal cords.
The Filter of Life
A simple invention that saved lives and led to the discovery of a hidden form of life.
Biting Back
The story of Louis Pasteur and the development of the rabies vaccine.
The Ancient Chemistry Inside Your Taco
Dive into the world of nixtamalization, and find out how you’re eating a small piece of ancient chemistry each time you bite into a taco.
Bug Hunters
In the 1920s author Paul de Kruif turned science into an adventure story.
The Cancer-Free Dwarfs of Ecuador
How one man’s youthful rebellion may unlock a cure for cancer.
Science, Protector of the Common Good
Using chemistry to put a lid on unsavory practices.
Young and Positive
Many young people living with HIV put themselves at risk by not taking their medication properly.
Making Sense of Making Meth
Anthropologist Jason Pine offers an up-close view of methamphetamine culture in small-town America.
Sickening Sweet
Relics from a lab hint at centuries spent trying to solve diabetes.
Packed Full of Questions
The discovery of vitamins in the early 20th century opened the gates to the flood of dietary supplements we have today. The result has been the marketing of nutritional anxieties against a backdrop of minimal regulation.
The Healing Power of Compressed Yeast
Fleischmann’s Yeast for Health campaign turned unappetizing blocks of fresh yeast into one of the first health-food fads by using brazen, relentless advertising marked by unverifiable claims and “scientific” language.
The Machiavelli Microbe
Can a parasite in your cat’s litter box take control of your mind?