HISTORY: Science, Medicine and Technology

This set of Bibliographies of books, dissertations and primary source materials gathered over decades by Historian/Archivist Clark Elliott is an invaluable starting place for research in this field. It also includes his essay, “Antebellum American Science: A Thematic (and Somewhat Bibliographic Review).”

The database indexes scholarship on the history of science and technology published in Spain or by Spanish authors all over the world. Most materials are in Spanish, but it includes some English-language materials on Spain or the Spanish-speaking world.

Created and made freely available by: Instituto de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia López Piñero

“The WHSO project will create a free sustainable online resource for the worldwide community interested in the history of science and technology in all its richness and diversity.”

A multidisciplinary approach that addresses all aspects of the dialogue between the sciences and the world’s religions, reaching into the humanities as well as into the physical sciences and technology. Examines controversial issues such as human cloning and stem cell research long with more traditional questions such as the origins of life, the nature of sin, and the philosophy of science and religion.

HOSLAC is a free database of 200+ primary sources (mostly images) on the history of science in Latin America and the Caribbean. Each image is accompanied by a brief essay that places it in its historical context. Thematic groups of images are also introduced by essays. HOSLAC was produced at the University of New Hampshire with funding from the NSF.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries worldwide that cooperate to digitize and make accessible the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global “biodiversity commons.” BHL also serves as the foundational literature component of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) with access provided to texts “with information on over a 150 million species names.” {RG 12/11/13}

"The aim of DSI is to provide quick and reliable reference information about scientific illustrators from the invention of the printing press to 1950.  Click the "Browse DSI" link to begin. It is a project by the Section for History of Science & Technology [Abteilung für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und Technik, GNT] at the History Dept. at the University of Stuttgart.

A digitized collection of rare medical books, “the Medical Heritage Library (MHL) is a digital curation collaborative among some of the world’s leading medical libraries. The MHL promotes free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine.” Currently contains more than 37,000 items.

The volumes in this series contain transcripts of the Witness Seminars at which significant figures in twentieth-century medicine are invited to discuss specific discoveries or events in recent medical history. All papers and records collected during the organization of the meetings and editing of the transcripts are deposited in Archives and Manuscripts, Wellcome Library, London, in collection GC/253.” All volumes are freely available here as PDF downloads.

A few of the topics covered are:

Technology Transfer in Britain: The Case of Monoclonal Antibodies: Self and Non-Self: History of Autoimmunity: Endogenous Opiates

Early heat transplant surgery in the UK

Looking at the Unborn: Historical aspects of obstetric ultrasound.

British Contributions to Medical Research and Education in Africa after the Second World War

"NLM historical collections include selected digitized material relating to the history of medicine. Chosen from the manuscripts and books collections, the prints and photographs collection, historical films and videos, current and past exhibitions, and the Digital Manuscripts Program, these digitized materials cover a spectrum of centuries and cultures from medieval Islam to contemporary biomedical research."

The Wellcome Collection, including the Wellcome Library (London, England) is one of the premiere collections in the history of medicine.  This is a link to the library catalog includes an option to search only among the digitized images of objects in their collections which cover a broad variety of subjects associated in some way with the history of medicine.

“The Corpus Medicorum Graecorum (CMG) presents the extant writings of all Greek physicians from the 5th century BC to the end of classical antiquity, including early Byzantine handbooks and commentaries on ancient authors, in historical-critical editions.  The Corpus Medicorum Latinorum (CML) presents the extant writings of all Latin medical authors from the 1st to the 5th century AD in historical-critical editions.  The Supplementum to the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum publishes collections of Greek medical writings which have survived only in fragmentary form.  The Supplementum Orientale to the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum presents historical-critical editions of Arabic translations of Greek medical texts which have not survived in the original Greek.”