A new digital collection launched this week on Manchester Digital Collections brings together an dynamic mix of items from our medical collections for the first time. The Library holds an outstanding collection of manuscript, print and archival material relating to the history of medicine, which offers a rich resource for medical humanities research and teaching, and for anyone interested in the history of human bodies and how our ideas of health and disease have changed over time.
From an extremely rare 16th-century English herbal to a 19th-century anatomical ‘flap-book’ intended for the use of midwives, these eleven items form the basis of a digital collection that will be expanded over time to reflect the diversity and extent of the Library medical holdings, which include over 70,000 printed items and archival and manuscript material from over 30 individual collections.
Find out more about our medical collections here. Some highlights are showcased below:
This edition of the first herbal printed in England is one of only two known copies in the world. Herbals (texts describing the names and characteristics of plants and usually their medicinal properties) were some of the earliest medical texts ever written across Ancient Egypt, China, India and Europe. It was printed by John Waley and contains detailed descriptions of how plants can be used in healthcare, like the ‘Quynckefoyle’ (a form of Cinquefoil) advised for ‘ache in a mannes lymmes’ and ‘the heed/mouthe/tonge’ in the image above. Dr Stephen Gordon has explored the work further in his JRRI blog post here.
The Library’s medical collections are inextricably linked to Manchester’s own prominent place in the history of medicine as the city burgeoned from the late 18th century. This poster advertising the lectures of ‘phrenologist’ Mr. J.S.. Butterworth from the Hulme area of Manchester is one of many items that directly reflect this history. Phrenology was a popular pseudo-science in the 19th century, which maintained that bumps on the human head revealed certain mental traits. It has a problematic history, which is linked to theories of eugenics that gained prominence at the time.
These two volumes of one of the most popular ‘dissection manuals’ of the 19th century are interleaved with numerous anatomical illustrations by Manchester surgeon John Hatton. Hatton was apprenticed to Joseph Joseph, a pioneering physician who is credited with founding the first ‘provincial’ school of anatomy on Bridge Street, a stone’s throw from the John Rylands Library in Deansgate. Find out more here.
Intended as a ‘graphic’ descriptive and practical guide to midwifery to ‘promote the relief of female suffering’, Spratt’s two-volume work includes 50 lithograph plates with numerous interactive ‘flaps’ representing the changes in the female body during pregnancy and birth. Dr Rebecca Whiteley, Shreeve Fellow in the History of Medicine, has explored the work in detail as part of her research into the visual culture of midwifery training. A collaboration with our Imaging team produced some fascinating (and often disturbing) videos showing the flap-book in action.
Explore these items in depth on Manchester Digital Collections and stay tuned for new additions from our medical collections.
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