Royal College of Surgeons of England

Come and explore the Royal College of Surgeons of England’s Library and Archives collections. Research strengths include:

• History of medicine
• Military and social history
• Surgery, anatomy and dentistry
• Lives and works of surgeons
• Comparative anatomy and zoology
• Family history
• Art in surgery

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Visiting the Library and Archives

History Day 2024 contributions

• Blog post: The many forms of sea sickness
• Blog post: The mysteries behind a mediaeval manuscript of “women’s ills”
• Blog post: Poisons and the development of Toxicology in the 19th century

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History Day 2023 contributions

• Blog post: The Evolution debate through the RCS England Library
• Blog post: Stories from Lincoln’s Inn Fields: The Flower Family
• Blog post: Sanitary Ramblings in Bethnal Green by Hector Gavin, 1848
• Video: Royal College of Surgeons of England’s Voices of Surgery: Our New Oral History Project

History Day 2022 contributions

• Blog post: The Birth of Mankind: Putting the text in context
• Blog post: Cholera to Covid: Navigating RCS England catalogue
• Blog post: Dental Surgical Collections from the First World War
• Blog post: Dissection and the Ressurectionists in RCS England Archives
• Padlet: View Everyday Technology Firsts (#TechFirsts) from the collections

Video: Discover how the theme of human discovery runs throughout our collections

History Day 2021 contributions

• Digital exhibition: Medicinae Plantae: healing plants through time
• Blog post: RCS England Tracts: A truly complementary research resource
• Blog post: Natural History archive collections at RCS England
• Blog post: Medical History archive collections at RCS England

History Day 2020 contributions

• Blog post: Sir Harold Gillies’ Patient Case Files, 1915-1925. (RCSEng Archives Ref. MS0513)
• Blog post: “More ruthless than the Destroying Angel.” The London Lock Hospital and Rescue Home collection at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
  You can read all of our blogs at: https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/.
• History Day exhibition: Depicting Anatomy: The hunt for unalloyed reality
  From Renaissance public dissecting tables to the beautiful intricate illustrations contained in Victorian portable reference works, anatomy books have strived to depict and illuminate what is known about the inner workings of the body. These books made knowledge accessible to those who desired most to learn, which included a much greater audience than simply medical students, encompassing as it did; royalty, the intelligentsia and the man in the street. Anatomists like Vesalius made no secret of the fact that there was no substitute for practical experience of dissection, which helped to gradually bring the practice out of the graveyard shadows and into the well-lit rooms of surgical schools. The artistic and technical skill applied to this field aimed for the greatest accuracy possible, conscious that inaccuracy might compromise clinical and surgical treatment of the patient. Such high stakes led anatomical drawings to be executed with great precision, often using dissected specimens and sometimes studying the human form in motion as well. This exhibition focuses on images from our collections that do not always make easy viewing but can and should be considered artistically accomplished. They were intended to be beneficial to the contemporary student of anatomy and now they offer the modern observer a fascinating record of the progression of understanding in the field.All of our digital displays can be seen at https://scp.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/exhibitions/
• Video: Depicting Anatomy: The hunt for unalloyed reality