Eagle-stones, holy girdles, cheese and cake and a coral rattle: all were meant to aid childbirth and keep the newborn baby safe. Quaint superstitions to us, perhaps, but sensible approaches when facing the danger of giving birth, Martine Bailey, author of The Prophet, argues. “When a woman conceived she was launched on a roaring wave […]
How to radium party
Lucy Jane Santos, the cultural historian, explains how to hold a radium party like the ones that lit up New York a century ago. At the beginning of July 2020 I held a radium party for friends and family to celebrate the launch of Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium. We had specially-created (slightly) glowing […]