Tag Archives: archives

Save Oxford Medicine Project catalogues papers from the Rhodes House Library

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Newly catalogued papers from the Rhodes House Library

Three collections of personal papers from the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies have recently been catalogued byt the Save Oxford Medicine Project and made available to researchers. The letters, written by British doctors and nurses working in various parts of Africa in the second half of the 20th century, were sent home to family and friends and contain striking first-hand accounts of their lives.
  1. Letters of Barbara Akinyemi who worked as a nurse in the UK during World War II and Nigeria in the 1940s and 1950s.  http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/blcas/akinyemi.html
  2. Letters of Peter Bewes describing his work as a surgeon and lecturer in Uganda and Tanzania in the 1960s and 1970s.  http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/blcas/bewes.html
  3. Letters and papers of Cyril Sims Davies, a doctor, describing life in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe from the 1960s to the 1990s.  http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/blcas/sims-davies.html

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Saving Oxford Medicine: archives from the Medical Sciences Division

Saving Oxford Medicine is an 18-month special collections project, running from early 2011, to survey personal papers of current and retired members of Oxford University’s Medical Sciences Division, and to catalogue medical archives already held in the Bodleian Library. The Medical Sciences Division is one of the foremost centres for medical research and teaching in the world. The project aims to record key sources for the recent history of medicine in Oxford. This website will highlight collections as they are discovered and report on interesting items found as cataloguing progresses.

Cataloguing is going to begin with papers relating to Ida Mann (1893-1983), a pioneering opthalmologist, and the papers of Edith Bulbring (1903-1990), a pharmacologist and physiologist.

Full details of the project are available via their webpage and there is also a companion blog for all the latest news on discoveries, acquisitions and cataloguing during the project.

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Medicine in the Americas, 1619-1914: A Digital Library

Medicine in the Americas is a digital library project that makes freely available original works demonstrating the evolution of American medicine from colonial frontier outposts of the 17th century to research hospitals of the 20th century.

Drawing on the collections of NLM’s History of Medicine Division and including works from the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada, this initial release of Medicine in the Americas encompasses monographs dating from 1610 to 1865. Additional titles, dating up to 1920 and drawing further upon NLM’s comprehensive collection of early American printed books and journals, will be available on an ongoing basis in the future.

Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives & Museum Services

The Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum was established in 1967 as the Archives Department of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital.  It now houses art and historical collections spanning many centuries which are of unique interest and importance in the field of mental health.  These include the archives of Bethlem Hospital (the original ‘Bedlam’, founded in 1247) and the Maudsley and Warlingham Park Hospitals; an outstanding collection of paintings and drawings, including works by Richard Dadd, Louis Wain, Jonathan Martin, and William Kurelek; the statues of ‘Raving and Melancholy Madness’ from the gates of 17th century Bethlem; and many other documents and artefacts of historic and artistic significance.

The website is under continuous development.  Its aim is to make the collections more accessible, and to provide accurate information to help in their interpretation.

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New Resource: Dr. J. L. Todd Thematic Guide

The first thematic guide to international archival collections relating to Dr. J. L. Todd (1876-1949) has been completed and is now available online at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine web site. J.  L. Todd was Canada’s first professor of Parasitology and a noted pioneer on the subject. He was also involved with tropical medicine research in Africa, the Canadian Army Medical Corps, the development of the Canadian pension administration, and an investigation of Poland’s typhus outbreak in the 1920s. The guide consolidates holdings information about all known collections relating to Todd’s medical career as well as his personal papers and includes institutions in Canada, the United States, and England. It was prepared by researchers at McGill University’s Osler Library and Redpath Museum with support from Associated Medical Services Inc. (Toronto).

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Darwin Correspondence Project

On this site you can read and search the full texts of more than 6000 of Darwin’s letters, and find information on 9,000 more. All are being published in the complete edition of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin (F. Burkhardt et al. eds, Cambridge University Press). Available here are complete transcripts of all known letters Darwin wrote and received up to the year 1867, originally published in volumes 1 to 15 of the Correspondence.  More will be added following print publication.

Sir Francis Galton F.R.S: 1822-1911

Galton.org collects online all of Galton’s original published work, including all his books, papers and other published work.  The complete, definitive biography by Karl Pearson is provided here, as are contemporary reviews of, and commentary on, Galton’s work. There is a substantial gallery of photographs and portraits of Galton, and concise overviews of his major areas of interest are provided.

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The Medical Heritage Libray

The MHL is a collaboration of major research libraries in the United States, including the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, the National Library of Medicine, the Columbia Library of Health Sciences, and the College of Physicians in Philadelphia.

They digitize and make available through the Internet Archive a wide range of materials pertaining to the history of medicine, including texts on military medicine, general surgery and surgical history, spiritualism, sanitation, hygiene, tropical medicine, medical jurisprudence, psychology, gynecology, phrenology, crimes, criminology, electrotherapeutics, climatology, and homeopathy.

There is also a very interesting companion blog about the MHL.

History of Vaccines – A Project of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia

The College has created The History of Vaccines to provide a living, changing chronicle of the compelling history of vaccination, from pre-Jennerian variolation practices, to the defeat of polio in the Western Hemisphere, to cutting-edge approaches to novel vaccines and vaccine delivery. The site aims to increase public knowledge and understanding of the ways in which vaccines, toxoids, and passive immunization work, how they have been developed, and the role they have played in the improvement of human health.

The site also discusses some of the controversies about vaccination and some of the challenges, difficulties, and tragic events that have occurred in the use of vaccines.

Much of the historical material that appears on The History of Vaccines comes from The College’s Historical Medical Library and its wealth of rare books, medical journals, manuscripts, and archives.

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Medical School records moved to University Archives

Recent announcement that may be of interest to you:

‘On 16 February the University Archives received an accession of records from the Medical Sciences Division based at the John Radcliffe Hospital. The records, comprising administrative records of the Medical School (and, from 2000, Medical Sciences Division) from the 1920s to the 2000s, are the first records of the Medical School to be transferred to the Archives. They comprise personal files of clinical students; minutes and related papers of committees of the Medical School and Medicine Faculty Board; correspondence of the School and Division; and other records including indexes of students and photographs.  The Archives already holds central University correspondence concerning the Medical School but has not, until now, held any records created by the School itself.  The accession, and appraisals which Archives staff carried out at the John Radcliffe, marks the beginning of a relationship with the Divisional office which we hope will lead to regular transfers of material in the future.’