Annual review : 1997/98 / Contemporary Medical Archives Centre and Western Manuscripts Department.
- Contemporary Medical Archives Centre
- Date:
- 1998
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: Annual review : 1997/98 / Contemporary Medical Archives Centre and Western Manuscripts Department. Source: Wellcome Collection.
12/50 page 5
![We have maintained the pattern of building on the extensive inheritance of French manuscripts in the collection, with the addition of notes of anatomical lectures from Paris, 1714-15 (MS. 7600), and a botanical digest in Latin compiled by one Isnard, a physician of Vence, 1741 (MS. 7603). The anatomical lecture notes were taken by a certain Etienne Francois Vuillet, a student of surgery, and may have been from lectures by Pierre Chirac (1650-1732). If so, they are an important addition to the existing documentation of Chirac’s teaching; he published little, and whilst manuscript lecture notes are fairly common, there seem to be few relating to his anatomical course. The botanical work is a reworking of the plant taxonomy of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708). The author may have been Antoine Tristan Danty d’Isnard (1663-1743), physician and collector of botanical works, whose library contained numerous publications by Tournefort as well as a variety of manuscripts. The sale catalogue of his library (1744) describes, among other manuscripts, a “catalogue de plantes divisées par classes et genres”, which might have been our volume but for a mismatch of format. More certain is the attribution of a two-volume set of 18th-century anatomical and surgical lecture notes in English acquired in early 1998 (MSS. 7601-7602). The notes cover a course of 79 lectures given at William Hunter’s Great Windmill Street anatomy theatre in London, at some time after Hunter had been joined as assistant by William Cumberland Cruikshank (1745-1800) in 1771. The latter’s contribution to the course seems from the text to have been considerable, suggesting that he was already well-established as co-lecturer. In time Cruikshank became Hunter’s partner and successor in this most famous of private anatomy schools, until he ruined himself with drink. The student was probably John Power, later a surgeon at Market Bosworth. Records of medical education in London are also found among our 19th- century accessions. A medical student’s notebook of the early 19th century (MS. 7588) contains, among other entries, notes on six lectures delivered at the “theatre of Anatomy and Medicine, Webb Street [Southwark], by Mr Cooper”, dating from about 1830. Also teaching anatomy in early Victorian London was William Henry Power (1811- 1877), who tutored students in his rooms at Exeter Hall, Strand, from 1835. W H Power was incidentally the son, or perhaps grandson, of the John Power mentioned above. We have acquired a transcript of Power’s 5)](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31847924_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
