History & Special Collections Division

Collection Strengths and Named Collections

Medicine and Allied Health Sciences

Subject Strengths: Anatomy, herbal medicine, urology, ophthalmology, smallpox, vaccination and anti-vaccination, syphilis, forensic medicine, nursing, neuroscience, midewifery, obstetrics, and gynecology, teratology, physic or internal medicine, family medicine, 18th century French medicine.

• John A. Benjamin Collection of Medical History: A collection of over 800 titles dating from the 15th to the 20 century with a focus on urology, physic, and anatomy.
• The Franklin E. Murphy, M.D. Fund: Medical works dating from the 15th to the 20th century. The collection now numbers over 1425 works.
• Maurice N. Beigelman Collection of Rare Books in the History of Ophthalmology
• The Silas Weir Mitchell Collection : A near complete collection of the famous civil war physician's scientific works and fictional works. (donated by Elmer Belt, M.D.)
• The Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale Collection: A collection of all of her published works.
• A Collection of Japanese Medical Works: An extensive collection of printed works in Japanese on medicine dating from the 17th to the 19th century.
• Barlow Medical Library: A collection of over 11,000 works on medicine and the practice of medicine built between 1897 and 1934 by Walter Jarvis Barlow to serve the practioners of Southern California.
• Richard O. Myers Collection on Forensic Medicine
• Medical Journals: An extensive collection of journals starting with the two earliest: the Journal des Sçavans (1665) and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1665).