Clarke's Cabinets of Cures

When court physicians were unable to treat her malarial fever, the wife of the Spanish Viceroy of Peru (the Countess of Chinchon) turned to an alternative native remedy: Cinchona bark that later became known as quinine Photograph: Mark Clarke/Mark Clarke

The countess is depicted on elephant-back wearing golden trainers Photograph: Mark Clarke/Mark Clarke

Hildegard of Bingen began having religious visions at an early age and practised medicine in her role as Abbess of Rupertsbery Photograph: Mark Clarke/Mark Clarke

Hildegard's main work was on the curative powers of herbs, stones and animals. Here this 12th century nun features as part of a felt-worked altar inside the case of an 18th century grandfather clock Photograph: Mark Clarke/Mark Clarke

Mary Seacole is the Jamaican-born doctor who battled against prejudice and travelled under her own steam, and at her own expense, to care for the troops in the Crimean War Photograph: Mark Clarke /Mark Clarke

The cabinet features Seacole in her makeshift field hospital under her patchwork parasol toting her bag of lucky charms Photograph: Mark Clarke/Mark Clarke

Through history, bloodletting has been used to treat all manner of ills including madness, syphilis, fevers and love-sickness. This cabinet features a Revolutionary Merveilleuse dripping her way through an upturned Paris trying out the treatment and trying on an aristo's wig Photograph: Mark Clarke/Mark Clarke

The classic shipboard disease, scurvy, is triggered by a deficiency of vitamin C. The cabinet features a Biba-Nova scurvy-scarred mermaid basking on a mirrored seabed of 1930s sequinned fruit Photograph: Mark Clarke/Mark Clarke

Clarke's Cabinets of Cures: Blood, Mermaids and Madness is at the Wellcome Collection, London, until January 2009 Photograph: Mark Clarke/Mark Clarke