Research Resources in Medical History
Special Libraries and Archives received funding from the Wellcome Trust’s ‘Research Resources in Medical History’ scheme to catalogue our extensive early medical records, which date from the 15th to 19th centuries.

Throughout this period Aberdeen was unique in having two universities awarding degrees in medicine: King College, established in 1495 and Marischal College founded in 1593. Both institutions maintained close links with other early European universities, a fact reflected in the volume and geographic span of many of the collections, making them a rich resource for British and European medical history from the medieval through to the modern period.

Highlights include a late 14th-century compendium of medical receipts; the papers of key Aberdeen Enlightenment figure, David Skene (1731-1770), whose voluminous medical case notes provide wonderful detail for medical historians, especially those interested in obstetrics and gynaecology; and the records of other local physicians whose surviving papers illustrate medical practice in the British colonies, aboard East India vessels as well as whaling vessels. Europeanmedical history is represented in a rare 10-volume set of manuscript notes of the lectures of Leiden professor, Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738), widely regarded as the first great clinical teacher. But by far the largest collection included in the project is the Gregory Collection, which contains the personal and professional papers of 20 members of this internationally-renowned scientific family, which over the period 1582-1912 produced no fewer than 16 professors within five generations.

As the collections are catalogued they will be added to the University's on-line archival database.

This award follows a previous Wellcome grant to catalogue our post-1860 collections.