 n old book is not just literature but an artefact that must be handled and preserved like any other museum's piece. Each individual copy of a several hundred year old book that through the kindness of fate has come down to us in its original binding is unique and has its own story. Like an archaeological object it can upon closer examination tell the attentive researcher a lot more besides the author and his text, which is often available in modern editions and translations. In order to interpret the intellectual value of the whole book it is also important to study the work of the skilled craftsmen involved in the production of the book: the printer and his types, the artist who drew the illustrations, the woodcutter, engraver or lithographer, who transferred the artist's drawing to the woodblock, the copperplate or the lithographic stone, the colourist, and the bookbinder with his stamps and decorative or marbled endpapers - all that gives the aesthetic delight. Then there are the bookplates, library stamps, the signatures and marginal notes of former owners, and much more that can add a lot of beneficial information to an inquiring mind. (Right) The title-page to one of the German editions of Mattioli's herbal (Frankfurt, 1600) with its fine wood-cut border by Christoph Stimmer after a drawing by Jost Amman. |
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 he medical student of today is benefitting from the services of a modern library, where information is obtained with more and more sophisticated methods by means of computers and copying machines. In our modern and highly specialized educational system the scholarly humanism, so characteristic of earlier generations, has more or less vanished. Few of the library patrons have ever seen or held an old medical book in their hands. The value of such a book, often in Latin, is incomprehensible for most of us until it is properly catalogued and annotated. Our catalogue descriptions gives besides author, title and imprint also a full collation as well as a description of the binding and exterior of our particular copy of the book, provenance, a bibliographical note and a historical commentary on the author and his/her work and its place in the history of medicine, with references. (Left) The title-page to the first edition of William Harvey's De motu cordis (1628), a thin little book of 36 leaves only, in which he announced his discovery of the circulation of the blood, one of the greatest milestones in medical science. |
By the significant collections now brought together in HB it is our ambition to bring to life the history of medical practice and scientific knowledge as reflected in notable works of the past - from the earliest printed editions of the works of Galen in Antique Rome two thousand years ago up to the offprints of significant and epochmaking papers of Nobel Laureates in Physiology and Medicine of the twentieth century. Through publications, exhibitions, lectures, and demonstrations we hope to spread the interest for the history of medicine and old books to students, teachers and researchers of the Karolinska Institutet and to all interested in our cultural hertitage.
A choice selection of our book descriptions will continually be presented in our new virtual book museum, the bibliotheca systema naturae, where each item is accompanied by images of the title-page and several more images in the form of magnifiable thumbnails of plates and illustrations or other feautures of interest in our particular copy of the book.
