LibGuides: Primary Sources: Health and Medicine

Health and medicine

British Pathe This link opens in a new window Archive of vintage film footage covering 20th century UK domestic and worldwide themes, events and news. Date coverage: 1897-1970
Disability in the Modern World: History of a Social Movement This link opens in a new window Focusing on the disabled community and its contributions to society, this collection includes primary sources, supporting materials, and archives, along with 125 hours of video. The archive can be searched or browsed by place, people, publisher, organisation and discipline.
Essays and Dissertations of the Scottish Royal Medical Society, 1751-1970 This link opens in a new window Contains over two hundred historical dissertations and essays submitted to the Royal Medical Society between the period 1751-1970. Subjects covered range from the study of psychology and mental health to the treatment of rare bacterial diseases.
Food and Drink in History This link opens in a new window From feast to famine, explore five centuries of primary source material documenting the story of food and drink with sources from the UK, US and Australia. Covering 16th to early 21st centuries.
Food Studies Online This link opens in a new window Contains archival content, visual ephemera, monographs, and videos that explore how food shapes the world around us. Content is mainly C20, but there is a small amount of older material. The scope is global, though most material is focused around Europe and North America.
Health & Fitness Magazine Archive, 1950 - 2015 This link opens in a new window Consumer magazines devoted to health and fitness topics.
History of Disabilities: Disabilities in Society, Seventeenth to Twentieth Century This link opens in a new window This collection provides historical evidence demonstrating how society has interacted with and regarded individuals considered to have disabilities. Includes books, manuscripts and ephemera from the New York Academy of Medicine Library. Most content is US-focused, though there is some European and UK coverage. Date range: 17th to 20th century
In Response to the AIDS Crisis: Records of the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 1983-1994 This link opens in a new window The U.S. National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (NCAIDS) advised U.S. Congress and the president on the development of a national policy concerning the HIV epidemic. This collection includes briefing books, hearing and meeting transcripts, press clippings and the various reports created by the commission in their investigations into the AIDS epidemic and its impact on society.
Margaret Sanger Papers This link opens in a new window Covers every aspect of the 20th century birth control movement in the U.S., including the movement's changing ideologies, its campaign for legitimacy, its internal conflicts and organisational growth. Includes Sanger's correspondence, her personal papers and other papers that she collected to document the birth control movement.
Medical Services and Warfare This link opens in a new window Explore multiple perspectives on the history of injury, treatment and disease on the front line. Chart scientific advances through hospital records, medical reports and first-hand accounts, and discover how war shaped medical practice across the centuries. Date range: 1850 to 1949
Narcotic Addiction and Mental Health: The Clinical Papers of Lawrence Kolb Sr This link opens in a new window Archive of Dr. Lawrence Kolb, pioneer in the medical approach to narcotics addiction treatment, public health research, and the treatment of mental illness. The collection deals chiefly with the subjects of drug addiction, alcoholism, juvenile delinquency, and mental health.
Pandemics, Society, and Public Health, 1517-1925 This link opens in a new window Archival materials charting the course and consequences of pandemics over 5 centuries, centred on on four diseases that have left a significant mark upon British history: plague, cholera, smallpox, and influenza.  Collection is curated along thematic lines: economics and disease, control measures, international relations, medicine and vaccination, and public responses.
Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900 This link opens in a new window This collection showcases the development of 'popular' medicine in America during the 19th century, through an extensive range of material that was aimed at the general public rather than medical professionals. It includes printed sources, including rare books, pamphlets, trade cards, and ephemera.
Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995 This link opens in a new window Journal articles and reports covering modern Public Health policies during the second half of the 20th century, 1957-1995.
Records from Bethlem Royal Hospital, 1559-1932 This link opens in a new window Contains four centuries' and 130,000 images' worth of records from Bethlem. Records include: voluntary and criminal admission registers; discharge and death registers; male and female patient casebooks; minutes of the Court of Governors; and staff salary books. All handwritten items have been fully transcribed.
Royal College of Physicians Digital Archives This link opens in a new window The Archive of the Royal College of Physicians of London covers the history of medicine, medical humanities, medicine and culture, religion, and government, the establishment of public health systems, and the policies governing medical education and practice, with content spanning from ~1200 to the late C20. It contains monographs, rare books, manuscripts, correspondence, reports, conference papers, medical reports, medical education textbooks, proceedings, lectures, anatomical drawings, public health surveys, photographs, drawings, data and ephemera - all presented as fully searchable digital images that can be analysed, downloaded, manipulated, and compared with content from other societies and universities in the Wiley Digital Archives programme.

UK Medical Heritage Library Search and view the collection of over 66,000 digitised European medical publications from the nineteenth century