Exploring Wellcome Collection: A Social History of Madness in Europe

A new short course in the history of medicine has been created by Dr An Vleugels, Birkbeck College, University of London. Exploring Wellcome Collection: A Social History of Madness in Europe draws on the rich holdings of Wellcome Collection, both in the Library and the galleries. Full details can be found on the Birkbeck website.

17th century recipe books online - call for testing

Please take a moment to test out our exciting new digitisation project. The Library’s first venture into full-text digitisation is underway with the photography of 17th century manuscripts from our collection of recipe ("receipt") books. These manuscripts contain household medicinal and culinary recipes, often written by women. The project will not only produce cover to cover digital surrogates, but create a rich index to the level of individual recipes.

Four examples of entire manuscripts have been made available for viewing online and we would welcome your feedback. You can use the comments section of this blog, or email us direct at SystemsStrategy@wellcome.ac.uk.

MS 1
MS 108
MS 144
MS 1791

Wellcome Trust research papers - now available as an RSS feed

An RSS feed has been setup to facilitate easy access to the latest research findings published by Wellcome Trust-funded authors.

All papers listed are freely available in full-text format from the UK PubMed Central repository.

View recent articles.

Melanie Klein Play on Radio 4

This Saturday (20th December) Radio 4 will be broadcasting a play based on the life of the influential child psychoanalyst Melanie Klein (1882-1960).

Mrs Klein by Nicholas Wright dramatises Klein's relationship with her own children.

Melanie Klein, a disciple of the teachings of Sigmund Freud, came to London in 1926 and was a key figure in the 'British School' of psychoanalysis. The therapeutic techniques she devised for children also had a lasting impact on methods of child care and rearing.

The Wellcome Library holds Klein's papers – a rich collection of material and part of our significant archival holdings on psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

New Look to the UK Web Archive

The UK Web Archive has a new public interface. See http://www.ukwebarchive.org.uk/

The Wellcome Library, along with the JISC, was instrumental in starting web archiving in the UK in 2005. Snapshots of each site are taken at suitable intervals. The archive is free to view and has already collected over 4,000 selected websites since it was set up in mid-2005.

The Wellcome Library collects web sites with a history of medicine focus for the archive. Sites are selected in accordance with the collection development policy of the Library and are gathered with permissions from the website content owners.

Archived sites can be searched alphabetically by their name, by URL or by a controlled set of subject categories. Additionally, themed collections such as Personal Experiences of Illness have been developed to build up topical, in-depth resources.

If you have a website that looks at some aspect of the history of medicine, and you think it should be in the archive, please complete the nomination form at http://www.ukwebarchive.org.uk/ukwa/info/nominate

John Thomson photographs to be displayed in Beijing

A selection of digitised negatives by John Thomson will be displayed at the Beijing World Art Museum in 2009. BBC China highlighted this exhibition recently, including audio commentary and image galleries.

The Wellcome Library has recently completed digitising the 650 glass negatives. They were taken by Thomson during his travels in the Far East in the 1860s and 70s. Thomson captured these rare scenes using the collodion process, a very early photographic technique. This collection was purchased by Henry Wellcome in 1921, and the Library also holds a number of prints which can be viewed on request.

The negatives have undergone extensive conservation treatment. During 2008, they were scanned using a high-end flatbed scanner in order to capture the depth of detail present on the negatives, and to enable large-format printing. A technical report on the digitisation project is publically available.

Biomedical images animated

For anyone interested in creative use of biomedical images, take a look at Drew Barry's work using animation: an article in CGSociety, Society of Digital Arts, and on The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

On me 'ead..

The Library has recently purchased the only known copy of a German pamphlet from 1785 that still contains two original 'forehead reading' templates. Made of cardboard and hand painted, these unique plates fit over the forehead to enable the practise of metoposcopy. Metoposcopy is the study of lines on the face to tell fortunes and reveal something of the individual's character. These curious items are now available to see via the Wellcome Images catalogue and the book has been digitally photographed.

Medical London is Book of the Week on Radio 4

Richard Barnett's new book, Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures has been selected as Book of the Week on Radio 4.

You can tune in each morning at 9.45, or at 00.30 for the nightbirds. And of course, anytime for the next week through BBC iPlayer.

Richard,will be discussing the book with editor Mike Jay at Daunts Books, on Marylebone High Street on Wednesday evening, 3rd December. More details can be found here

Full details of the book, including videos by the guides who conducted the themed walks from the book can be found on the Medical London website.