History & Special Collections Division

Online Sketches in Medical History: A Digital Project

The History & Special Collections Division of the Louise M. Biomedical Library has an extraordinary collection of rare books on medicine. The history of Western medicine resides in this 500+ years of printed texts. In an attempt to make aspects of this history available on the Web, we are going to digitize selected texts and images.

Because we are just beginning, the selection of material is Curator's Choice. Our first endeavor focuses on bloodletting. In the future we plan to digitize and put up images and text on such subjects as: midwifery, surgery, uroscopy, pulse-taking, and medicinal plants. In addition we will focus on such under-exposed parts of books as the titlepage, and other decorative vignettes.

If you have any suggestions (do-able suggestions) send them along and we will consider them, add them to our list and maybe do them.

Support for the creation and mounting of these historical resources is provided by the Barbara & Leon Rootenberg Fund.