Anyone with an interest in medicine, literature or history is invited to take part in Becker Library’s Special Collections Book Club. Every few months, we’ll hold a discussion about a novel that features some aspect of medical history, then look at the primary sources that bring the stories to life.
The Bernard Becker Medical Library is fortunate to have robust collections in archives and rare books that document the history of medicine from the late 15th century up to the present. Subjects in which the library’s holdings are particularly strong include ophthalmology and optics, neurology, deaf education, and the history of dentistry. In order to [Read more]
On Wednesday, Dec. 20, Becker Library’s Archives and Rare Books Division will host the Annual Display of Rare Anatomical Texts from 2 to 5 p.m. in the King Center on the library’s seventh floor. The exhibition is a unique opportunity to see a selection of spectacular medical works dating from the Renaissance to the 20th [Read more]
Becker Medical Library is pleased to announce that Richard A. Chole, MD, PhD, has generously donated over one hundred rare titles relating to otolaryngology to its rare book collections. Dr. Chole served as Lindburg Professor and Head of the Department of Otolaryngology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis for 17 years before [Read more]
The Bernard Becker Medical Library is fortunate to have robust collections in archives and rare books that document the history of medicine from the late 15th century up to the present. Subjects in which the library’s holdings are particularly strong include ophthalmology and optics, neurology, deaf education, and the history of dentistry. In order to encourage researchers living more than 100 miles from St. Louis to use these collections, Becker Library will offer two grants annually of up to $1,000 each to help defray the costs of travel, lodging, food and photo reproductions. Covered expenses will be reimbursed at the conclusion of the visit.
On February 16, 2017, from 4:30 to 6:30 pm, Bernard Becker Medical Library and the Center for History Of Medicine will present the 56th Historia Medica Lecture, “Books and Bodies: 500 Years of Printing Medical Texts,” followed by a grand opening reception in the newly renovated Glaser Gallery. The event is free and open to the [Read more]
If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you’re probably aware that the Potterverse is about to expand with the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This new film follows the adventures of Newt Scamander, the wizard who authored the textbook Harry and his fellow Hogwarts students used in their Care of Magical Creatures class. While we Muggles (or No-Majs, as we’re called in North America) are unlikely to encounter any hippogriffs, acromantulas, and grindylows in person, if you venture up to Becker’s Archives and Rare Books you can see them in some of our historical texts!
The end of fall is the season when the veil between our world and the spirit world is thinnest. That means Halloween is the best possible time to try to communicate with ghosts and spirits!
Phrenology has many definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary. My favorite is:
The theory that the mental powers or characteristics of an individual consist of separate faculties, each of which has its location in an organ found in a definite region of the surface of the brain, the size or development of which is commensurate with the development of the particular faculty; the study of the external conformation of the cranium as an index to the position and degree of development of the various faculties. (Phrenology, Oxford English Dictionary c 2016)
This work is disrespectfully dedicated to those who feel that a knowledge of the Human Body, sufficient for the needs of the future Medical Practitioner, can be adequately obtained without post-mortem investigation. It will be seen that with the aid of a few objects borrowed from the gardener, or cook (if she be out), the [Read more]