The History of Medicine Collections house materials of interest to a wide array of students and scholars of history of medicine and science, literature and the arts, theology and law, women's studies and sociology, and to all who are curious to view an amputation saw, a bleeding bowl, or other fascinating artifacts.

Circulating Collection

The circulating collection includes histories of medicine and medical institutions, biographies of doctors, scientists, and other practitioners, and the historical aspects of every field of medicine, as well as facsimile editions of milestone works. The Kinsey Institute sexual behavior collection is available for circulation but is housed in the locked stacks.

Reference Collection

Arranged on shelves around the perimeter of the Reading Room, the reference collection is a non-circulating body of material always available for consultation. In addition to dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, and guides, there are current journals and computers with access to the Historical Images in Medicine (HIM) digital database of illustrative material.

Locked Collection

Acquired from a variety of sources through donation or purchase, our rare and older works include titles by Galen, Avenzohar, Berengario Da Carpi, Vesalius, Pare, Gerard, Harvey, Smellie, Withering, Laennec, Beaumont, Roentgen, Osler, and Banting; titles about anesthesia, yellow fever, pediatrics and vivisection; and titles in special collections such as the Warner Wells Hiroshima collection or the Duke Authors Collection. These works are non-circulating. However, materials from any of the locked areas can be requested at the History reference desk for use in the Reading Room.

Trent Collection

Dr. Josiah Charles Trent, Founding Chief of the division of Thoracic Surgery at Duke, began collecting medical history books during his internship year (1938/39) at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. With the aid of Henry Schuman, a medical rare book dealer, he continued to collect throughout the ten-year span of his professional life. In 1956, Dr Trent's widow, Mary DBT Semans, donated his 4,000 books and 2,500 manuscripts to the Medical Center Library. His collection included not only rare and first editions of the medical classics but secondary sources and reference works, as well as fine museum objects such as ivory anatomical manikins, Chinese doctor dolls, a bronze ecorche, and a painting of Valentine Mott.

Georgia Medical Society Collection

The Georgia Medical Society was founded in 1804 and is among the oldest medical societies in continuous existence in the United States. In 1931, no longer able to afford to maintain their library, the members of the Society donated 8,000 volumes of medical journals and books to Duke University Hospital Library. The agreement was negotiated between Dr. Victor H. Bassett, Chairman of the Georgia Medical Society Library Committee, and Dr. Wilburt C. Davison, Dean of the Duke University Medical School. In recognition of this important contribution to our historical collections, a memorial plaque has been permanently placed in the History of Medicine Reading Room.

Manuscript Collection

Our collection of manuscripts includes letters, diaries, lecture notes, physician day books, and account ledgers. The collection covers items as diverse as a seventeenth century copy of a late fourteenth century Persian treatise on anatomy and the papers of the Urodynamics Society. The letters of the first dean of the Medical School, Wilburt Cornell Davison, and the papers of Josiah Charles Trent are examples of material very specific to the history of Duke's medical center. Also represented are large collections of manuscripts by Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Waterhouse, Pliny Earle, Silas Weir Mitchell, and Elias Herndon Hudson.

Nonprint Collection

The nonprint collection includes medical instruments, pharmaceutical cases, photographs, prints, illustrations, stamps, bookplates, commemorative medals, apothecary jars, microscopes, audiovisuals, and a medicinal herb garden, which is located on the terrace outside the Reading Room.

Duke Authors Collection

The Duke Authors Collection was created to preserve a copy of materials authored or edited by both individuals (faculty or staff) and departments at Duke. Although the largest portion of the collection consists of works by individual authors, other materials, such as formularies, procedure manuals, directories, the Medical School yearbook (Aesculapian) and publications on the university as a whole, including the Duke Endowment, find a place as well. Many volumes are signed presentation copies, and the Library encourages authors to donate copies of their works for this collection. An exhibit, drawn from volumes recently added to the collection, is mounted regularly to acquaint the community with the scope of publication within the Medical Center.