Distillations magazine

Relics from a lab hint at centuries spent trying to solve diabetes.

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.

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.

Can a parasite in your cat’s litter box take control of your mind?

A story of horror, deadly medicine, and the Ku Klux Klan.

A terrifying weapon emerged in World War I: poison gas. In response, armies scrambled to protect their soldiers against these weapons and to treat those injured.

What do ancient Egyptian mummies, early modern medicines, a 19th-century philosopher, and a 21st-century chemist have in common?

Scientists are known to be dedicated to accuracy. But sometimes, as in the case of Francesco Redi, a sense of humor can lead one astray.

The man who wanted to make the United States a healthier place and the sometimes fuzzy line between science and quackery.

A Confederate doctor had no problem breaking the Hippocratic oath.

Discover the history of the EpiPen.

During the Civil War necessity drove the North and South to develop different strategies for dealing with malaria.

In the early 1950s French physician Henri Laborit experienced a moment of serendipity that would fundamentally alter the landscape of psychiatry and mental illness.

Neither medicine nor food, the vitamin pill was born in the early 20th century and came of age during World War II. Now, vitamins are here to stay—and so is the controversy that swirls around them.

Was arsenic a poison or a salvation?

Amphetamine didn’t cure anything, but it did make you feel better. Chemist Gordon Alles faced this paradox after patenting his discovery in 1932.

The controversy around animal magnetism.

The impact of the Civil War can still be seen politically, socially, and economically, but its influence on medicine is often obscured.