A mirror for medicine : some resources of the Wellcome Institute Library an exhibition, Monday 19 October - Friday 18 December 1987.
- Wellcome Historical Medical Library
- Date:
- 1987
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: A mirror for medicine : some resources of the Wellcome Institute Library an exhibition, Monday 19 October - Friday 18 December 1987. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![INTRODUCTION The present exhibition is designed to indicate the variety and richness of the material in the care of the Wellcome Institute. It is not intended to do more than point out to researchers the scope and historical depth of the Institute's primary and secondary sources in manuscript, printed and iconographic materials. Credit for the existence of these large, diverse, and unusual resources must be paid to the vision and drive of Sir Henry Wellcome [1853-1936], pharmaceutical magnate and philanthropist, and to his heirs the Wellcome Trustees who continue, among their numerous services to medicine, to fund the Institute and to support the study of medical history in the United Kingdom. Only an indication of the scale and range of the Institute collections is possible within the compass of an exhibition, for the printed books alone number some 450,000 volumes and the periodicals since the mid-17th cen- tury total some 6,500 titles. Western manuscripts and the materials of the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre are an essential part of the primary sources which, with early printed books, post-1850 medical texts, the historical (or reference) collection, and the topographically distinct Oriental and American collections are all unsurpassed research sources in their fields. The diverse and numerous iconographic collections provide the indispensable visual record often absent from the manuscript or printed text. Material in all fields continues to be collected by gift, deposit or purchase. The formation of the Institute's collection of western manuscripts be- gan in 1897. It now contains more than 6,000 volumes and boxes of loose papers, and some 100,000 items of correspondence. It documents almost every aspect of medicine and science and incidentally provides research resources for a variety of other subjects. The manuscripts range in date from the 3rd century A.D. to 1900, and more than 800 of them were written before 1650. Their character is varied, from illuminated medieval manuscripts to the rough ledgers and account books of 19th century med- ical practitioners which are no less important as a source of historical information. More than twenty European languages are represented in the collection. The Contemporary Medical Archives Centre was established within the Wellcome Institute in 1979 to locate, collect and catalogue the personal working papers of 20th century British medical practitioners and scientists in medical and ancillary disciplines. Such unpublished sources include](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20456852_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
