Stolen and lost copies of Vesalius's Fabrica

Thefts and losses of precious books are not rare. Here we report several incidents concerning vesalius's Fabrica: the fire of the University Library of Leuven in Belgium, the fate of the collection of the Leopoldina Library of Halle in Germany, the thefts from the Crerar Library in Chicago and in Christ Church College in Oxford, the disappearance of an exceptionally beautiful 'royal' copy from the Castle of Argenteuil (Belgium), and other Fabrica's missing at the Franeker Library in the Netherlands and at the Library of oradea in West Romania. Finally the means of protecting precious book collections are discussed in short as well as the importance of book identification.

[Looking at several fleeting hygiene journals from the 19th Century kept at the National Library of France]

The authors investigate some ephemeral reviews of private and public hygiene of the 19th century in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). They examine the general context of their publication, describe them according to the usual bibliographic criteria, analyse their aims and content, and try to understand why they were so ephemeral. These reviews are in a very poor state and computerisation, they hope, might give them a new life.

Medical education in late antiquity from Alexandria to Montpellier

The training of medical students reflects current medical trends and has grave repercussions on the future development of the medical art. This is as true today as it was in Antiquity. There was, however, one period and place at the crossroads of civilisations and cultures in which the educational trends were to have a particularly important influence on how medicine evolved. This was Alexandria in Late Antiquity. In a climate where medicine and philosophy were heavily intertwined, teachers used formal philosophical concepts in order to organise medical knowledge. Their educational techniques provided the tools with which Islamic authors during the medieval period such as Avicenna (Ibn Sinā, d. 1037) arranged their great medical encyclopaedias. These works in Latin translation later became the core curriculum in the nascent universities of Europe.

[Spanish authors in the ideal library of G. Naudé (1627): a European view of the Spanish culture and science at the beginning of the 17th century]

This article aims to analyze a European view of the 17th century Spanish culture. Naudé's "Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque" (1627) - translated twice into English: "Instructions concerning erecting of a library" (1661) and "Advice on establishing a library" (1950) - represents a wide set of bibliographic recommendations that constitute, among many other things, an excellent observatory of the Spanish culture in such a delicate time.

[Natural scientists and medical bibliography in the Dominican Monastery of Dubrovnik]

This article speaks about Dubrovnik's Dominicans who were engaged in natural studies or wrote medical dissertations. It brings a list of manuscripts and printed works kept in the Dominican monastery library. These include six incunabulae and more than 200 works on anthropology, anatomy, hygiene, pharmacy, and general, theoretical, and practical medicine, internal and cerebral medicine, orthopaedics, surgery, ophthalmology, psychology, and gerontology. Tractates on all kinds of diseases, especially contagious, and their treatment, are also included. A portion of these works comes from donations by various doctors who worked in Dubrovnik, and others were acquired for the needs of the monastery pharmacy. These works were written in Latin, Italian, French, German, and Croatian. Such a wide range of works on almost all aspects of medicine is more akin to a professional library of a medical college than to a monastery library, howevergrand or important it really is.

Botany and zoology in the late seventeenth-century Philippines: the work of Georg Josef Camel SJ (1661-1706)

Georg Josef Camel (1661-1706) went to the Spanish colony of the Philippine Islands as a Jesuit lay brother in 1687, and he remained there until his death. Throughout his time in the Philippines, Camel collected examples of the flora and fauna, which he drew and described in detail. This paper offers an overview of his life, his publications and the Camel manuscripts, drawings and specimens that are preserved among the Sloane Manuscripts in the British Library and in the Sloane Herbarium at the Natural History Museum, London. It also discusses Camel's links and exchanges with scientifically minded plant collectors and botanists in London, Madras and Batavia. Among those with whom Camel corresponded were John Ray, James Petiver, and the Dutch physician Willem Ten Rhijne.

Humphry Davy and the Royal Institution of Great Britain

The abortive attempts of Sir Humphry Davy to introduce modest reforms at the Royal Society of London during his Presidency (1820-27) contrast with his (largely unstudied) earlier experience of administration at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI). Davy's attempts to combat the systemic weaknesses in governance and funding, and his role in effecting changes at the RI, in association with a core group of reformers, merit consideration. This paper analyses important aspects of the early management and social structure of the RI and examines the inner workings of the institution. It shows how and why the Library, its most valuable financial asset, and its celebrated Laboratory, developed along distinctive lines, each with its own support structures and intra-institutional interests. While acknowledging the roles traditionally ascribed to Count Rumford and Sir Joseph Banks, the paper highlights the contributions of other early patrons such as Thomas Bernard, son of a colonial governor of Massachusetts, and Earl Spencer, a leading European bibliophile and RI President from 1813 to 1825. The promotion of a Bill in Parliament in 1810, designed to transform the RI from a proprietary body politic into a corporation of members, and the subsequent framing of the bye-laws, provided opportunities to establish a more democratic structure of elected committees for the conduct of science.

[The textual research on the medical work of Wang tao]

Wang tao began to learn TCM as soon as he grew up, his teachers were proficient and famous doctors. He traveled and learned from them for several times and grasped their medical thoughts and technologies, therefore achieved profound medical accomplishments. Taking advantage of his medical background and occupation, he collected fifty and sixty kinds of medical data in prescription books of Jin and Tang dynasty from treasured books of Hong wen museum in Tianbao fifth to sixth years (746 -747) , when he served as Jishizhong of Ministry of Counseling and Functionary Management and administrated Hongwen museum. He then sorted them and compiled the famous work: Waitai Miyao (Arcane Essentials from the Imperial Library) in Tianbao 11th year (752).

Byzantine medical manuscripts: towards a new catalogue, with a specimen for an annotated checklist of manuscripts based on an index of Diels' Catalogue

Greek manuscripts containing medical texts were inventoried at the beginning of the 20th century by a team of philologists under the direction of Hermann Diels. The resulting catalogue, however useful it was when new and still is today, needs to be updated not only because some manuscripts have been destroyed, certain collections and single items have changed location, new shelfmark systems have been sometimes adopted and cataloguing has made substantial progress, but also because in Diels' time the concept of ancient medicine was limited, the method used in compiling data was not standardized and, in a time of manual recording and handling of information, mistakes could not be avoided. The present article is an introduction to a new catalogue of Greek medical manuscripts. In the first part, it surveys the history of the heuristic and cataloguing of Greek medical manuscripts from the 16th century forward; in the second part, it highlights the problems in Diels' catalogue and describes the genesis and methods of the new catalogue, together with the plan for its completion; and in the third part, it provides a sample of such a new catalogue, with a list of the Greek medical manuscripts in the libraries of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

"So long as I can read": farm women's reading experiences in Depression-era South Dakota

During the Great Depression, with conditions grim, entertainment scarce, and educational opportunities limited, many South Dakota farm women relied on reading to fill emotional, social, and informational needs. To read to any degree, these rural women had to overcome multiple obstacles. Extensive reading (whether books, farm journals, or newspapers) was limited to those who had access to publications and could make time to read. The South Dakota Free Library Commission was valuable in circulating reading materials to the state's rural population. In the 1930s the commission collaborated with the USDA's Extension Service in a popular reading project geared toward South Dakota farm women. This "Reading in the Home" program greatly increased reading opportunities and motivations. Of particular interest to rural women were tales of pioneer life featuring strong protagonists. Through these stories, farm women found validation and encouragement to persevere. Reading also broadened horizons and challenged assumptions. For the depression-era farm woman, reading books and other materials provided recreation, instruction, and inspiration in a discouraging time.

Alwyne (Wyn) Cooper Wheeler (1929-2005) and the libraries of the Natural History Museum, London

As a senior scientist working in the Fish Section of the Department of Zoology at the Natural History Museum, Alwyne (Wyn) Wheeler was a regular library user and well-known to library staff. Always amiable and helpful, and possessing a broad general knowledge of natural history as well as expertise on fishes, Wyn interacted with library staff at all levels. A close working relationship developed where he contributed to section library management and collection building. He also published catalogues of some of the library's most important art collections. This paper celebrates the collaboration between Museum scientist Wyn Wheeler and librarians at the National History Museum.

[Systematic study of natural artifacts. On the program of the Academia Naturae Curiosorum of 1652 and its early history]

By means of indications this paper stresses the importance of the founder's father of the Academia Naturae Curiosorum, Leonhard Bausch, for the academy founded 16 years after his death. The long array of the monographs of predecessors, listed by Philipp Jacob Sachs von Lewenhaimb, whereof nearly the half of it belonged to father and son Bausch's library, allows an instructive insight into the 150-years-old tradition of the elaboration of medical-philosophical monographs. Finally the young Leopoldina raised this tradition to its program. The following bibliography contains all monographs edited in this program.

[Bibliography of previous models and precursors for the foundation program of the Academia Curiosorum Naturae 1661 monographs]

Philipp Jacob Sachs von Lewenhaimb, academical learned physician of Breslau, offered his cooperation in the Academia Naturae Curiosorum in 1658. In his letter of application he praised the programme of the academy and specified in this place and more detailed in the praeloquium of his Ampelographia (1661) many similar monographs published 150 years ago. This paper gives a complete bibliography of these predecessors of medical monographs and the verification in the library of Leonhard and Johann Laurentius Bausch (42 of 95 titles).

[The Paduan doctor Alessandro Pellati, his library and the first edition of De medicorum astrologia]

The article prints the text of a document in the Archivio di Stato, Venice, comprising a list of books intended for auction, with an estimate of their value. THey constitute the private library of Alessandro Pellati (d. 1487), a Paduan doctor about whom nothing is known, except his name appears in the colophon of the first edition of a short treatise attributed to Hippocrates, the De medicorum astrologia seu de esse aegrorum, translated into Latin and published in Padua in 1483. The considerable number of astrological works in his library show that Pellati was keenly interested in the subject which, under the title of "natural magic", had assumed a significant place in medical studies at that time, particularly in Padua.

Exposure to carcinogens and mortality in a cohort of restoration workers of water-damaged library materials following the River Arno flooding in Florence, 4 November 1966

BACKGROUND

In Florence, Italy, the Arno River overflowed on 4 November 1966 and the rare library collections of the National Central Library in Florence (FNCL) were flooded. A Restoration Centre was immediately set up. For book restoration many toxic chemicals were used, such as chlorinated solvents, ethylene oxide (EtO), formaldehyde, petroleum distillates, and pesticides. The study's aims were: (I) to document the restoration process, (II) to identify the potential chemical exposures, (III) to evaluate the mortality experience of restorers.

METHODS

A small cohort of 168 workers was identified. The restorers were employed in the FNCL's Restoration Centre during the years 1967-1976. We excluded 9 subjects from the analysis because no working period data were available. Mortality from all causes, from all cancers, and from cancers of specific sites was compared with that of the Italian general population. Standardized Mortality Rates (SMRs) and their 95% confidence intervals were estimated.

RESULTS

Restorers were exposed to relatively low levels of several carcinogens. A non-significant excess of cancer mortality was found. Significant increases in brain neoplasm among men and in uterine cancer among women were found,

CONCLUSIONS

The small cohort size hampers interpretation of the results. Larger epidemiology studies on library material restorers are needed in order to evaluate risks in this activity. Recommendations to improve future studies are given.

[Franca, New-France, transposition of pharmaceutical knowledge in 18th century]

The inventories after death have many details about houses of our ancestors and inform us about their way of life. The notary describes sometimes the library, if there is one. This one give us a good idea about the readings of our ancestors whom the apothecaries: Literature, Religion, History, Right, Medicine. These readings became some essential tools for their proprietary. The practitioners of health represent one example of this. With two representative areas of mother country and settlement, Low-Normandy (which gave many settlers in 17th century) and Canada, we are going to see the libraries of the practitioners of pharmacy in these two areas. What are the books present? Is the medical European knowledge transmitted between France and New France? Is there an influence of North-American middle?

[Initial reflections on the organization of knowledge in Kodex Ms. 8769 of the Biblioteca nacional in Madrid with an edition of the compendium about 'critical days', as well as comments on the structural organization of Melleus liquor physicae artis Magistri Alexandri Yspani]

A medical compendium of 'Melleus liquor physicae artis' has survived under the name Alexander Hispanus, possibly a medical scholar of the 13th or early 14th century, in codex Ms 8769 of the Biblioteca nacional in Madrid. But we don't know verifiable facts about Alexander Hispanus. There are more indications, that Alexander was a fictitious person and he never lived. The compendium tells about the maintaining of health as a matter of concern with strong temporal regulations. Therefore a bavarian tract about critical days was enclosed afterwards. This is very interesting, because the tract is dated to 1350 and it's written by a younger hand. Compared with that other parts of the handwriting are dated roughly to the 14th century and are written by an older hand. This tract was now edited (look to the appendix). At the same time a structural analysis of the organisation of knowledge clarified, that the Melleus liquor must be sawn as a well thought-out text altogether. The parts are connected within of three levels of structure: human, medicine, deseases and their recognition. But time is of overriding importance and it's superordinated to these factors of structure. All in all the handwriting monument is certainly written in the 14th century, but it documents medical doctrines of an older age. The late medieval writer probably used much older scripts, that don't exsist any longer. But so they were copied and came down to us fortunately.