-
An epoch in the history of typography
In the preface to The Anatomy of Sleep Jamaican–Scottish physician Edward Binns (1804–1851) claims to have written the first ever treatise on “procuring sleep at will, by directing the activity of the cerebral organs”. But that isn’t the only first… Continue reading
-
100,000 digitised books in the Medical Heritage Library
The 100,000th item to has been added to the Medical Heritage Library. The Medical Heritage Library (MHL) brings together a huge curated collection of digitised works related to health and medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries, drawn from some… Continue reading
-
Diary of an asylum superintendent
The digitised diaries of asylum superintendent Dr James Adam (1834-1908) offer a rare view of life inside a late 19th century mental health asylum for the poor. Adam was praised for his energetic and humane approach to the role at… Continue reading
-
Unearthing the health of Victorian London
What can you learn from old bones? Rachel Ives explains what they tell us about the lives and deaths of the dead, and how osteologists use historical sources such as the Medical Officer of Health reports to confirm their findings… Continue reading
-
Wounds from the Battle of Waterloo
A “damned near-run thing” said the Duke of Wellington on his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo on 18 June 1815. The Battle of Waterloo was the the bloody finale of the French Emperor’s 100-day reign. While Napoleon was exiled to… Continue reading
-
Digitisation at the Royal College of Physicians, London
The library of Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is delighted to be one of the ten UK partner organisations taking part in the UK-Medical Heritage Library (UK-MHL) project. Over next year, working with the Wellcome Library and the Internet Archive, the RCP… Continue reading
-
A high class book of reference
Here is an entertaining guide to Our Daily Fare and How to Provide It, for World Book Day. This book is aimed at the average housewife stuck at home in 1893 and limited to a “small weekly household allowance” of… Continue reading
-
Setting the record straight: maniac or sick man?
Researcher Jon Mitchell searched the Retreat archives in pursuit of John Summerland, an asylum patient whose story figures in histories of madness and mental health. What he found was a lost reputation. Like so many undergraduates, the first time I came… Continue reading
-
The UK Medical Heritage Library: uniting digitised collections
We are excited to welcome nine UK research library partners to the UK Medical Heritage Library project. These libraries will be making their historic collections available for digitisation alongside the Wellcome Library’s own 19th century works. They make up the… Continue reading
-
‘Ghosts of giant physiologists and vampire surgeons’
In 1887, writing under the pseudonym of Aesculapius Scalpel, Hackney GP Edward Berdoe published a frightening novel portraying everyday cruelty and callousness at the fictional St Bernard’s teaching hospital. Despite being a work of fiction, the author claimed 75 per… Continue reading