An account of the Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia 1788-1906.

  • Charles Perry Fisher
Date:
[1906]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An account of the Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia 1788-1906. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    A manuscript believed to have been written in the fourteenth century. The leaves are of vellum, and a part of what may be called a title reads, “Secretis medici.” Original manuscript notes of Dr. Cadwalader’s e.ssay on the “Dry-gripes,” published in 1745. [Deposited by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell.] Sketch of the yellow fever of 1762. By Dr. John Redman, written in 1763. Diary of Dr. Griffitts. Epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1798. [Deposited by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell.] The “Gilbert Collection” of manuscript letters in four folio volumes. The “Carson Collection” in six quarto volumes. A history of the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, from 1765 to 1868. The manuscript Archives of the International Medical Congress held in Philadelphia, 1876. Four quarto volumes. The manuscript Archives of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 1787 to 1847. The collection of portraits, framed and unframed, is an extensive one: these are catalogued, and this catalogue includes the portraits found in books. The collection of medals is not large; it contains, among others, two gold medals, one handsomely jewelled medal, and medals in honor of Franciscus Ilcdi, Benjamin Rush, David Hosack, Edward Jenner, etc. Medical book-plates are not collected, but allowed to remain in the books. There are some fine examples, of which eighty-four have been catalogued. The Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, for size and value of its collection, ranks, probably, as the third medical library in the world. The number of volumes cannot be taken as a guide to the value of a library, except, perlraps, when special collections have reached such proportions as the Library of the Surgeon-General’s Office. The principal universities throughout the world luive large libraries ranging from 100,000 to 800,000 volumes, and most of them have medical departments; but I have been unable to find that as much as one-tenth of any of these libraries are composed of medical books. The Biblioth^que de la Faculty de M<5decine at Paris is given second place, with the figures stated at about 160,000 volumes. If funds were available at this time for binding report?, dissertations, etc., the Library of the College of Physicians would contain close to 100,000 volumes. It has long since outgrown its present quarters, and a new building with modern equipment is now under consideration, and it is hoped will be erected in the near future.
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