Heritage
Collections - The Historic Book
Collection page 1
General Introduction; Books for
Physicians and the start of literature written
for General Practice
Books for Physicians
17th-20th
Books on Early General
Practice 19th-20th
Books for
Lay people
Biographies and Reminiscences
Featured
Collections:
William Pickles
Sir James Mackenzie
Michael Balint
Darwinism and Natural Selection
Introduction to the Collection
The Royal College of General Practitioners is only fifty years
old, but in the early days of the College many members donated
books of great general interest. A major assessment in 1997 led to
some duplicate and lesser books in poor condition being sold,
with the proceeds being used to fund a conservation programme
for the core collection.
Compared to many other medical libraries, the collection is
tiny, comprising some 500 books dating from 1668 right up until the
creation of the College in 1952. The Historic Books
collection is separate from The Geoffrey Evans Reference Library of
the College which contains more modern material including over 6000
books, 200 theses and a journal collection of over 250
titles.
The small but select collection of medical classics reflects
the fact that until the second half of the nineteenth century and
the emergence of medical specialism, such was the variety of tasks
carried out by most doctors that all were in some sense generalist
and most medical books were relevant to their work. By the turn of
the century and the creation of National Insurance, and later the
NHS, general practice started to create its own literature, and
this collection is a unique one for early twentieth century books
relating to the emerging disciplines of general practice, public
health and education.
Top
Books for Physicians (17th-19th
Century)
17th-19th century reference
books such as lectures, dictionaries, encyclopaedias,
pharmacopoeia, textbooks on anatomy, surgery,
physiology; obstetrics, venereal disease, hypochondria, hysteria,
vaccination, auscultation.
- 19th-20th books about evolution, hydrotherapy,
psychology, longevity, diet, prescribing, medical education,
forensics, orthopaedics, public health, cardiology, radiology,
euthanasia, dermatology etc.
- Authors include John
Abercrombie, Benjamin Travers, Daniel Tuke, Percival Potts,
Florence Nightingale, Smellie, Erasmus Wilson, Richard Quain,
Gideon Harvey, John Abercrombie, James Mackenzie, Sir James Paget,
Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, William Pickles, Zachary Cope,
William Watson Cheyne, Sir George Newman, Russell Brain, I P
Pavlov, Johann Schroeder, Nicholas Culpeper, Friedrich Hoffman,
Matthew Baillie, Edwin Chadwick.
Books on Early General Practice
19th-20th Century
Until the latter half of the twentieth century and
the creation of this College there was very little training and few
books published which were aimed specifically at general
practitioners.
"It
is forty years since I qualified. After a year in hospital as house
physician, I entered general practice in an industrial town of
about 100, 000 inhabitants. I started my work fairly confident that
my teaching and hospital experience had amply furnished me with a
competent knowledge for the pursuit of my profession.....I had not
be long engaged in my new sphere when I realised that I was unable
to recognise the ailments in the great majority of my patients ...
the patients felt ill or suffered from pain or other disagreeable
sensation. These subjective symptoms had received but scant
attention in our training.... although I read the leading text
books assiduously, I could find little help. ...
In medical schools the responsibility on the physician is
very great, for it is to him that the student looks for placing the
essentials of his training in the different branches in their due
perspective in their application in practice. This at present he is
supposed to do without having seen what the general practitioners
life is like, so that he has no knowledge of his students'
opportunities for seeing disease, and does not know the problems
that confront the doctor in the practice of his
profession".
Sir James Mackenzie "The Future of Medicine"
1919
From the late nineteenth century three different types of
books for general practitioners began to appear
- Anecdotal
style practical guides passing on wisdom of
experienced general practitioners e.g. Jukes de
Styraps's The young practitioner: with practical hints
and instructive suggestions 1890
- Text books and
Encyclopaedia e.g. W S Sykes A
Manual of General Practice 1927;
- Clinical
books - a new school of general practitioner
researchers such as Mackenzie himself were adapting
scientific methodology to the study of their patients and the
diseases and publishing the results of their findings - e.g.
Rheumatism in general practice. A clinical study by
Matthew B. Ray 1934, Epidemiology in Country
Practice by Will Pickles 1939.