Birth of quarantine

Lessons from the plague ships centuries ago can help protect our horses today. Fleur Whitlock MRCVS and Richard Newton FRCVS outline simple steps to safeguard your yard

Many people associate clans with Scotland, but the word originated in Ireland in the early Middle Ages. It derives from the Irish clann, meaning children, and is used to describe a highly organised hi

One answer to this question is relatively straightforward. For much of Greek history, people living near the coast or on the islands ate plenty of fish and seafood – not out of obsession, but out of p

What does your wee say about your health? Well, plenty – but perhaps not in quite the way medieval physicians understood it. Before the in-depth study of anatomy and physiology, establishing the cause

I n 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That, at least, is what the famous rhyme tells us. Memorising such dates is a common experience of being taught history – a cliché superbly lampooned by the w

At Merrivale on Dartmoor a line of granite stones once marked the boundary between the sick and the living. Today it marks the start of one of the country’s most haunting walks.