Resources

The following are online sites that contain primary sources from various periods and places that can be used in teaching the history of medicine.  The editors are eager to expand this list. If there are sites you would like to see added to this page, please email us.

The Wellcome Library in London has numerous resources, including

  • An image database, Wellcome Images.
  • AIDS Public Health Posters, a collection of over 3000 digitized public health posters relating to AIDS, from 99 countries.
  • Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics, a collection of digitized books and archives from the Wellcome Library and partner institutions on the history of genetics.
  • Mental Health Care Archives, archival material relating to psychiatric institutions, mental health organizations and individuals in the UK. The material dates from the 18th to the 20th centuries.
  • Recipe Books, a collection of domestic recipe books with both culinary and medicinal recipes dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
  • A digitized archive of the Royal Army Medical Corps.
  • Sexology, a selection of digitized books, paintings, photographs and manuscripts from the Wellcome’s collections.
  • London’s Pulse, a digitized collection of London Medical Officer of Health reports from 1848 to 1972.

The National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland has many resources in its History of Medicine section.  These resources include:

The Casebooks Project, funded by the Wellcome Trust and directed by Lauren Kassell, contains transcriptions of the casebooks of two early modern English physicians, Simon Forman and Richard Napier.  The casebooks cover the period 1596–1634.

Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics is a a digital library collection created by Harvard University Library’s Open Collections Program.  Materials include digitized copies of books, serials, pamphlets, incunabula, and manuscripts—a total of more than 500,000 pages—many of which contain visual materials, such as plates, engravings, maps, charts, broadsides, and other illustrations. Library materials and archival materials are supplemented by explanatory pages that introduce concepts related to diseases and epidemics, historical approaches to medicine, and notable men and women.

The National Archives of Great Britain has recently made First World War hospital diaries available online.  The collections includes diaries of 247 First World War hospital camps, hospital ships, convalescent hospitals and veterinary hospitals.

The ACT UP Oral History Project contains full transcripts and 5-minute video clips of interviews with members of ACT UP/New York.