The Historical Collection contains over seventy thousand volumes, including runs of more than 300 journals, on the history of medicine. The rare book collection consists of over 30,000 volumes: fifteen incunabula; over 3,000 volumes printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; over 10,000 eighteenth-century imprints; over 18,000 nineteenth and twentieth century publications.

The collection of secondary literature provides access to over one hundred current periodicals in history of medicine, history of science and social studies of medicine. The collection acquires most new monographic works in the history of health, medical care, the biomedical sciences and public health, as well as selected medically-related material in the history of art, anthropology, literature, religion, and gender issues in medicine. 

The manuscript collection includes a fourteenth-century version of Constantinus Africanus’ Latin translation of the Viaticum of Ibn al-Jazzār; folders of correspondence of Edward Jenner; papers of the Rockefeller foundation malariologist, Paul Farr Russell, along with a large amount of miscellaneous correspondence and manuscripts, mainly of physicians, from the seventeenth- to the twentieth-century and a collection of Ceylonese palm-leaf medical manuscripts dating from the seventeenth- through the nineteenth-century.    

The image collection, numbering over 20,000 items, contains caricatures, institutional views, hospital postcards, along with portraits of physicians and scientists from the sixteenth- through the twentieth-centuries.  The largest portion is the unique pathological print collection created by Dr. Jonathan Hutchinson, an English surgeon, ophthalmologist, dermatologist, venereologist and pathologist, whose career spanned the mid-nineteenth- through the early twentieth-centuries.

The artifact collection contains 19th century phrenological heads, 18th c. bleeding instruments, and an extraordinary group of smallpox artifacts and prints collected by D. A. Henderson, M.D., M.P.H.  

Using the Collection

Historical Collection books and journals are discoverable via the Catalyst catalog. Secondary sources published after 1900 can be requested by JHU students, staff, and faculty for pickup at the Eisenhower or Welch Libraries via the Request at JH feature in Catalyst. Rare books can be requested via Catalyst or via email, but must be viewed in the Rare Book Room on the third floor of the Welch Medical Library. After requesting a rare book, send an email to historicalcollection@jh.edu to arrange an appointment for reading.

The Historical Collection is open to researchers on weekdays from 9:00 am until 5:00 pm.

Why You Should

Studying the History of Medicine is an interdisciplinary endeavor with applications across the humanities and social sciences. Within our collections you’ll find materials to sustain original scholarship in Art History, Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy, Ancient and Modern Language, Literature, Intellectual History, Political Science, Travel, Religion, Alchemy, and the History of Books and Readership.   

Publicly Available Resources

Resources Available via JHU