From the Collections
Discover hidden gems in our collections. Explore the digital collections with us and find out about our latest acquisitions.
From Aristotle’s biology to modern genetics, our collections cover the breadth of medical history and culture, in manuscripts, archives, books, paintings and video.
-
Kitchen alchemy in the 16th century
Since late antiquity, alchemical texts have had a reputation for being difficult to read. Besides often being written in Latin, which automatically limited the readership, these treatises employed a hermetic language, following the tradition of the secrecy of esoteric knowledge.… Continue reading
-
Ambroise Paré’s medical ‘monsters’
In the collected works of Ambroise Paré (c. 1510–90), first published in French in 1575, a ‘Book of monsters and prodigies’ appears alongside other subjects including the setting of bones, the identification of parasites, and the treatment of wounds. Paré,… Continue reading
-
Sketches from a journey across Europe in 1817
Two hundred years ago, an English businessman waited nervously at Dover, about to take a leap into the unknown. In July 1817, at the age of 31, Joseph Jackson Lister – a wine merchant and, in his spare time, a… Continue reading
-
Art in the asylum
What is the value of art created in the asylum, and who has the right to decide how it’s used? These are some of the questions raised by the Adamson Collection – 5,500 paintings, drawings and sculptures by people (mainly… Continue reading
-
Opening up the Wellcome Trust corporate archive
For the first time Wellcome Library members can request and view material from the Wellcome Trust’s own corporate archive. This is the result of a two year project to turn Wellcome’s corporate records into a public resource available to all.… Continue reading
-
The fpa: changing opinions on contraception
Contraception is a risky business. Where the conception of life is concerned, no one method of family planning is flawless and thus education is key. The fpa is a charity provides information and education so that people can make informed… Continue reading
-
Censorship of medieval English recipes
A late medieval manuscript in the Wellcome Library contains intriguing marks of censorship. MS. 406 is a collection of Middle English texts and recipes produced in the 15th and early 16th centuries. The recipes are from the ‘Practica phisicalia’ composed… Continue reading
-
Henry Wellcome: pioneer in aerial photography
It’s a little known fact that Sir Henry Wellcome was something of a pioneer in aerial photography. Wellcome first visited Sudan in 1900, to establish what became the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories in Khartoum. Once the laboratories were established, he… Continue reading
-
A medieval medical bestseller: the ‘Circa instans’
Pharmacy was one of the pillars of medical therapy during antiquity and the Middle Ages. Medicaments were derived from the natural world (plants, minerals and animals), and resulted from the combination of different substances, each with specific properties and therapeutic… Continue reading
-
Queen Isabella’s regimen of health
In the later Middle Ages there was a considerable appetite for regimens of health, texts that provided advice about how to remain healthy and combat illness. Medical advice today depends for its efficacy on several factors, from evidence-based proof to… Continue reading