The Year in Review | 2008

HICS ANEURYSM CHARIOT RETICENT PHOTOGRAPHY PRESERVATION LADYBIRD OPSONISATION PERSPICACITY SOLUTIONS MILLION MATERIA MEDICA NURSE FR
RE REVOLUTIONARY INSPIRATION EMBRYO PHLEBOTOMY ANKLET LYMPH NODE OPERATION GLUCOSE GLORIFICATION ENGLISH PANELLING continuous process
WER MICROSCOPE QUERIST ICONOGRAPHIC NEUROFIBROMATOSIS CURIOUS NUDE GENETICS CENTURY ANTHROPOLOGY COSMOPOLITAN PAINTING FORAYS C
CEIPT UNUSUAL BULLET INFORMING DECORATED SORANUS JOINTS MONUMENTAL MUSCULOSKELETAL IMPROVING ROSES ANIMAL SUBSTITUTE KING ENLIGHTE
N PLETHORA NOMENCLATURE ORIENTAL HIPPOCRATES SYLLOGISM MICROBIOLOGIST IMPROVEMENT ARCHIVES TRANSCRIPTION KNOCKOUT INTERIOR SOURC
CANON the dangerous art of surgery FLOATING OPTOMETRY PROTEINS STEROID FIDUCIARY SOMMONTE SWIM CANOPIC ACADEMY CHALLENGE MYOCA
NATIVE CONSERVATION BLING COUNTERPOINT PROPERTY FIFTEENTH BIRD DEPICTING SILVER COMPARTMENT INTESTINE CADUCEUS ALLOPATHIC JEWEL TIMEL
E BIOHAZARD NEOCLASSICAL EARCAP IMPRESSED ANTRUM NOTEBOOK SCALABILITY CONFOCAL COMPASS CHASTITY BIOARCHAEOLOGY MASK FIGURE STILL
DAL BRUSH SCIENTIST aural and visual landscape MENDELIAN ENIGMA BRAHMAN REVEAL FRAGMENT AMAZON COLOSSUS SCAR RENOVATION SHRUNKEN
PPETITE ECORCHE FOREHEAD FRESCO BEZOAR ERYTHROCYTE ALCOHOL CARVING PAROCHIAL DEPICTION MAGNILOQUENT ABSCESS ORNAMENT FLOURISH C
ES ABUNDANCE RECIPES DANCERS PUBLIC FILM ANAMORPHIC DIAGONAL DEVELOPMENTAL APOTHECARY WIND AMALGAMATION MUTATION EFFIGY ESOTERICA
ELIXIR CLASS PHARMACOLOGY code that makes you human LIMB WITCH WOODEN STUCCOWORK OBSTETRIC ALBUMINOUS PARCHMENT BLOODLETTING S
LE CONTINGENCY CONGENITAL RENAISSANCE SYMBOLISM MODERN MACHINE RITUALISED AMITOTIC DHARMA PLASTINATE PSEUDO PULSATING ANATOMY VEIN
US PLASTINATION NUTRITION PHARMACEUTICAL SERVE SPHERES DEHYDRATE MOLOCHISM MINNESOTA RETROVIRAL EXQUISITE ABSTRACTION TATTOO intimate

“A great library

NG BODIES MALARIA EMBRYONIC MANUSCRIPT SNUFFBOX PHTHISIS ZYGOTE SHARING GARMENT SCENES EXPRESSION BABY DRUGS WHIMSICAL PHILANTHR
CIMEN UNREQUITED SNORING ANOMALY ANTHROPOMORPHIC EMBALM WATERCOLOUR SCULPTURE STATUE SKELETON AMPUTATION TESTOSTERONE SILAS MA
ESCENT DATA CLASSICAL GRAVE FIGMENT VITAMIN BIRTH HISTORICAL ICONOCLASTIC GROTESQUE CURIOSITY DREAM SMOKE MUSEUM concepts of beauty

contains the diary

OCTOR ANATOMICAL KLEPTOMANIAC SKETCHING BRAIN HEAL ANTIDEPRESSANT SURGEON EASEL ARMS WILL STASIS FLUX ANTIBODIES CERAMIC TOOTH MUM
TINNITUS TOILET ACUPUNCTURE DEAD SALVAGE MANIKIN STYLE MUSE HENRY SOLOMON WELLCOME NUCLEUS CALCIUM BRAND INLAY FLEETING MOLECULAR
LEGACY EROTIC DISTILLATION masterpieces of the carvers’ art ANTIQUITY WATER VISIONARY SEQUENCING HUMANE HERITAGE MECHANICAL TRUTH PIO

of the human race.”

RICAL BONE MALADIES TOXICOLOGY DIGITISATION TRIBE VENTRICLES PSYCHIATRY CULTURE PHYSICK NURTURE PAIN TISSUE ARTEFACTS PARASITE RELIC GALV
LEATHER LABORATORY GUILLOTINE EPISTEMOLOGY PROSTHETIC PHYSIOLOGY IMMUNITY PALATE OESTROGEN ORTHOPAEDICS SHIELD STETHOSCOPE OXYGE
-off point SPECTACLE HOLY MEDICINE BLOOD POWER PATHOLOGICAL FORGET POLYMATH LISTERIA LIVES CABINET STONE HIPPOPOTAMUS FASHIONABLE MY
NEONATOLOGY CURING ARCHITRAVE RENAISSANCE MAN HISTORIC ILLNESS FERTILISATION PARAGON COLOSSAL INVASIVE ANCIENT CRADLE HEARTBURN EXCA
UISITION EXPERIMENT EPIDEMIOLOGY SEX BIOPSY COMPOSITION CORPSE CONCEALED MUSCLE ALIVE HEALTH MEMORY CHAIR TONGUE AGONIST ITALIAN GEN
N GALEN George Mercer Dawson, Canadian scientist and surveyor NATURE walking collections of information SESQUIPEDALIAN ORGAN RAN
GENE TOOTHPICK VESSELS VISTAS FUNCTIONAL DISEASE GROTTO DRAGON ARCHAEOLOGICAL FERTILITY STICK END ECCENTRIC RHETORIC PANORAMIC MYST
TROSTOMY TABLET MELLIFLUOUS GLOW FREAKS INSTRUMENT GILDED SYRINGE NARRATIVE INSPIRING VAULTS PLAGUE PILL MASTERPIECE PHARMACY ARTER
BO FANTASY HYSTERIA MASTURBATION ANTEDILUVIAN PALLIATIVE PHRENOLOGY HOMOEOPATHIC ARTERY IVORY TRACHEA HISTOIRES PRODIGIEUSES NEOTERI
RE muscles and viscera exposed DIVERSITY DIAGNOSTIC BIENVENIDO UTERUS VIRTUE INSOMNIA PREGNANT STURGEON BEQUEST FEET GARGANTUAN HAIR
OSITORY TALISMAN TEXTILE SLEEP APNOEA PIPE PERSONAL SHAVING DEPICTED BACTERIA ENGRAVING URINAL HEREDITY ULTRASOUND FRANCIS CRICK PHYSIC
MINATION VERTIGO MULTIFARIOUS GUARDIAN EXECUTION EX-VOTO METICULOUS DEDICATED IMAGINATIVE hundreds of millions of short pieces SEEK BI
ONES INTERGALACTIC FUNERAL ANIMUS OOTHECA ECLECTIC AVANT-GARDE RESEARCH AMULET PORTRAIT GEOMANCY TRANSPLANT RAZOR PHYSICIST DISSEC
WOOD WADE INVESTIGATE VISCERA TECHNOLOGY DIASPORA XENOTRANSPLANTATION ORNAMENTAL VIVID DIURETIC PAINTED BOUND BLADDER PASSION BEHEM
TIC PHANTOM FRAME FREE RADICAL BEAUTY TERRA INCOGNITA GLAZE BELT GASTRIC JUICE ANOREXIA LUMINOSITY CAVITY METHOD INVISIBLE WOMAN rare survival
SPECIOUS TEACHING PUS ALCHEMIST EMPATHIC OESOPHAGUS MEDIA TRANSCENDENTAL STAINED PERUVIAN GLOBES CHAETAE REMEDIES HEREDITARY CHRO
IES INMATE EMULSION SERENDIPITY OFFERING EXTREMITIES CHINESE YAGE COMPRESSED CHAMBER ANTHROPOMORPHISM TSANTA WALKING CATHOLIC STUD
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FANTASTICAL ELECTROTHERAPEUTIC FACILITIES alternative medicine BILLIONS ASYLUM POSTERITY TRANSFORMATION CONDITION ENZYMES AORTA SENSI
M SAINT LINEAR LANDSCAPE YELLOW FEVER ZYGOSIS SHUAR GOSPEL SWALLOWING DISCOVERY BLEIGIESSEN TEXT REALIST SOUP CARDIOVASCULAR SABALOK
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SERVATION LADYBIRD OPSONISATION PERSPICACITY SOLUTIONS MILLION MATERIA MEDICA NURSE FROND NINETEEN MOLECULAR TORTURE REVOLUTIONARY IN
 ROND NINETEEN
process of
COIFFURE SCAMPER
EN ENGAGEMENT
CE SNAPSHOT
ARDIUM
LESS SCROLLS

N BIBLIOMANIAIntroduction
ZOONOSES FETUS

CONCEPTUAL SPEAR
From the Head of the Wellcome Library
A DELICATE
SCOLD GESTATION
NS WAR DYNAMO
intimate biological

Contents
ROPY CRAFTThe cover of the Year We welcome further discussions
AINVILLE in Review tells the story with you as we build our
beauty SHRINE of CADAVER
2008 in a single image. collections in this area.
MMY ALCHEMY
The Library is increasingly
2008 was our busiest year ever in Towards a digital library 4
R TORTUREdigital, in terms of its
the Library (see our vital statistics
collections and its services.
ONEER ELABORATE Bernard Spilsbury’s cabinet 6
sheet). We have enjoyed meeting
Our staff are involved in
VANIC BREASTS many of you at our programme Sanger’s notebooks 7
getting our content online
ENATED OBESITY of events (such as the Wellcome
for a global audience,
YRIAD GROWTH New in the Library collections 8
Image Awards, page 12) and
taking part in a number
AVATION ENIGMATIC workshops, as well as through Perspectives 10
of technically challenging
NITALIA WONDER
digitisation projects, some
our annual survey and via your
Wellcome Image Awards 12
NDOM VENEER emails and letters to us.
of which are managed on
TERY STIRRING UK PubMed Central 13
the premises and some Within the Library, traditional roles
RIES UPPERwith partners elsewhere continue to take on new forms and Publications 14
IC COLLAGEN
(see pages 4–5). completely new roles appear more
R CATACOMB
At the same time we have
and more frequently. My sincere
CIAN ARCHETYPES thanks to the Library Advisory
continued to acquire materials
IOTECHNOLOGY Committee, and to the staff of
from across all periods of history
CTION LUCIFERASE the Library, for their engagement
(see the highlights on pages
with these changes and their
MOTH BAROQUE
8–9). During 2008, we reviewed
commitment to building the quality
survivalourofapproach
royal and have now of the Library’s rich and diverse
ONOLOGICAL selected a new focus, targeting
FRIEZE collections.
materials that document the
DIO CHROMATOPSIA Book on front cover: Cityscape of
N TONICITYfoundations of genetic medicine Frances Norton, Venice from the Nuremberg Chronicle
(see page 7). Head of the Wellcome Library by Hartman Schedel, 1493.
IBILITY
KA CELESTIAL
EPS RECEIVE
TAXIS CHEQUERED
C EMBLEMATIC OIL
M CHARIOT RETICENT Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008 | 3

NSPIRATION
Towards a digital library
As part of its ongoing strategy, the Wellcome Library continued to make
more content available online and interact more with its readers.
By increasing access to the
Library collections digitally,
we will be able to meet user
expectations and provide better
services, greatly expanding our
research potential.
The digitisation programme will:
• provide 24-hour access to
significant collections of still and
moving images and sound, plus
detailed catalogue data
• enable new and innovative
research e.g. programmatic
linking of content to other
related resources
• allow content to be re-used in
unique and different ways under
the Creative Commons Attribution
Non-commercial 2.0 licence
• preserve digital content as
archive copies as well as for
online access.
A 17th-century test case
The Library holds an unrivalled
and steadily growing collection of
4 | Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008
domestic recipe manuscripts, with
nearly 300 volumes from the 16th
to 19th centuries. As our most
heavily used manuscript genre, the
recipe books collection formed a
perfect test project for the Library’s
mass digitisation programme.
Initially we have focused on
the 75 17th-century volumes,
since in this period the number
of surviving compilations vastly
increases and the social range of
compilers and owners widens out.
These recipe books contain more
than food: at their richest they
express their compiler’s sense of
self, covering medical practice,
religious and intellectual interests,
cosmetics, and household and
veterinary management. The
disconcerting mix of culinary and
medical recipes in Grace Acton’s
1621 volume, for example, is
typical, her flamboyant recipe for
roast peacock followed by an
unappetising cure for bed-wetting
involving a mouse boiled in urine
(above right).
We plan to digitise the remaining
volumes in future digitisation
rounds, and the indexing of the
recipe titles is currently in progress.
View images of these manuscripts.
Web archiving
The Library is also concerned
with items that are ‘born digital’,
as knowledge is increasingly
produced only in digital form.
The British Library estimates
that by 2020, 80 per cent of all
research material will be available
digitally. Today’s emails, datasets
and documents are tomorrow’s
research material, but only if
they survive.
We are actively engaged in
seeking out digital archives from
both our current and new donor
communities. Saving digital
materials, however, presents
new challenges for libraries and
archives. Born digital material Web 2.0 tools
cannot simply be ‘put on a shelf’ We have set up several online tools
and left: files created on computers to complement the digitisation
are fragile, ephemeral and prone strategy and make the Library
to catastrophic loss. The record collections more accessible online.
of 20th- and 21st-century human
scientific endeavour is being lost
as documents are deleted, or
media on which they are stored
become obsolete.
To ensure that future users will
be able to access the digital
archive we are building, the Library
has procured a digital archiving
application known as Safety
Deposit Box (SDB). Developed
jointly by Tessella and The National
Archives of the UK, SDB acts as a
repository within which material is
safely stored and actively managed
to ensure that it does not suffer
unauthorised modification or
deletion or be allowed to fall into
obsolescence. This system will Top: Grace Acton’s recipes, 1621.
allow today’s computer files to be Above: Sketch from Sarah Hudson’s
viewed in the future. recipe book, 1678.
• RSS feeds: a range of feeds for
newly available material.
• Wellcome Images on Flickr:
using the Flickr photostream to
show you more about selected
content.
• WellcomeFilm YouTube channel
showcasing the Moving Image
and Sound archives.
• Wellcome Library blog
highlighting the activities
of the Library.
Content on the blog varies from
updates on services to news
on media appearances by our
staff, new materials and more
discursive pieces on items of
interest. Topics range from recipe
books and pathology to French
aesthetes and forehead-reading.
The blog has been well received
by a very diverse audience, with
usage doubling each month.
Perhaps the most pleasing
comment was this one:
“...it’s a good example of
transparency and the provision of
access in practice. It feels a little
as if you had a friend who worked
there who sent on little titbits they
came across during their work”.
Right: Composite Armenian manuscript
copied by the scribe Khachatur dpir, 1795.
This illuminated page shows an astronomer
gazing through a telescope.
ONLINE REGISTRATION
We have introduced
e-registration, enabling
prospective members to
register and get instant access
to selected privileges. Then
you can log in to your account
to request material from stores
before your first visit, view
your requests, save catalogue
searches, sign up for weekly
email alerts based on your
searches and book online to
attend our free workshops.
Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008 | 5
Bernard Spilsbury’s cabinet
Forensic pathology, medical history and conservation
come together in Sir Bernard Spilsbury’s case cards.
Personal papers of the late
Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the
‘father of modern forensics’,
were purchased at Sotheby’s
by the Wellcome Library
in July 2008.
His cabinet of index cards is the
largest known collection of his
personal papers still in existence.
Although only covering the years
1905–33, and representing an
unknown percentage of his vast
number of autopsies and other
investigations (entered up in the
famous ‘little black books’, which
apparently do not survive), this
appears to be a representative
The acquisition of this
collection for £14 000
generated a great deal of
interest in the press, and
it has already been
consulted by a significant
number of researchers
6 | Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008
sample of his work. It seems likely
that the cards were extracted
from his notes as the basis for the
textbook that he intended to write
(but died before completing).
The cards include a significant
number of cases in which
death was the result of criminal
action, in particular, numerous
cases of illegal abortion and
suspicious infant deaths. But the
vast majority deal with sudden
or unexpected deaths through
natural causes or accidents.
Spilsbury investigated many
deaths from medical accident (in
particular, anaesthetic accidents)
and domestic, occupational or
street accident. He observed
perhaps the earliest identifiable
cases of TNT poisoning among
munitions workers during World
War I (and other occupational
diseases), as well as conducting
autopsies on victims of zeppelin
air raids. Several cases during
the 1920s mention previous war
injuries, gassing or shell shock of
the victims. He also performed a
number of autopsies on victims
of judicial execution, several of
whose convictions he had helped
to secure.
These cards have been
repackaged according to good
conservation and preservation
practice and a catalogue is now
available online. The acquisition
of this collection for £14 000
generated a great deal of interest
in the press, and it has already
been consulted by a significant
number of researchers in the short
time it has been available here.
Read Ben Macintyre of the Times
for more on this collection.
Sanger’s notebooks
The notebooks of Nobel Prize winner Fred Sanger, after whom the
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute was named, are now in the Wellcome Library.
The archives of the
Biochemical Society were
deposited in the Wellcome
Library in early 2008. The
jewels in the crown of this
collection are 35 laboratory
notebooks used by Fred
Sanger, Britain’s most
decorated scientist. They
record the experiments
between 1944 and 1981 that
won him two Nobel Prizes.
Only three other scientists
have received the Nobel Prize
more than once, one of
whom, Marie Curie, is already
represented in the Wellcome
manuscripts collection.
The notebooks document the
experiments at the Biochemistry
Department at the University of
Cambridge that led to Sanger’s
elaboration of the molecular
structure of insulin, for which
he was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Chemistry in 1958.
They also cover his later work
at the Laboratory of Molecular
Biology that resulted in the first
sequencing of the entire DNA of
an organism, a bacteriophage,
and the award of a second
Nobel Prize in 1980. The gene-
sequencing techniques pioneered
by Sanger formed the basis of
the early work on sequencing the
human genome, and he can be
justly credited as the father of the
Human Genome Project.
The biochemistry underlying
Sanger’s work is complex and
not for the faint-hearted, but
the notebooks are nevertheless
very revealing of the quiet
determination that led to such
outstanding scientific success.
A US reviewer once commented
that “Fred Sanger continues
to bang his head against brick
walls, and the walls keep falling
down”. Comments in the
margins of Sanger’s
notebooks such as
“a total waste of
time…will start again”
are testimony to the
stamina and dedication
of a remarkable laboratory
scientist.
Above: Fred Sanger.
Above left and right: Sanger’s
notebooks. The one above reads:
“Thus results crazy as usual…”
Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008 | 7
New in the Library collections
The Library acquired 4139 items in 2008. Find out more about some of the highlights.
Paintings, Prints
and Drawings
A mad dog on the run in a
London street: citizens attack
it as it approaches a woman
who has fallen over. Coloured
etching by T L Busby, 1826.
From his shop at 21 Charlotte
Street in London, Thomas Lord
Busby, an engraver, published in
the 1820s a series of prints entitled
‘Busby’s humorous etchings’.
No collection seems to have a
complete set of them. They show
the urban life of Georgian London
in a humorous but not generally
satirical way. Overindulgent
gourmets, fussy doctors, French
refugee ladies, confusing door
signs and working-class education
are some of the themes.
The 1826 print of rabies (right),
one of several of Busby’s prints
purchased by the Library this
year, is a time capsule telling us
8 | Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008
about the Georgian metropolis:
a rabid dog roams the street; the
street is surfaced with cobbles,
which cause a woman to trip
up; she was carrying a basket
of apples; the street is paved
on both sides, a recent sanitary
improvement; a broadside poster
warning that a dangerous dog
was at large had been posted on
the wall but has become tattered;
the men are permitted to carry
guns and fire them in the streets;
and terrified people take refuge
in a house with sash
windows and a fanlight
over the door, two
features of the light
and airy house that are
still to be seen around
Charlotte Street.
Rare Books
Collection
could
18th-century hospital then sponsor
admission forms, Surrey a patient. These printed
Dispensary and Eastern forms are rare examples of
Dispensary. how administration of the
sponsorship system worked
The dispensary movement
and the very beginnings of
had its beginnings in London
health service bureaucracy.
in the second half of the 18th
century. Championed by the The Library’s set consists of
Quaker physician John Coakley six forms. Three come from
Lettsom, a system of dispensaries the Surrey Dispensary: one for
was introduced where the poor admission (with a long list of rules),
could be treated as outpatients another for the patient to thank
and even be attended at home their sponsor on recovery and a
by physicians of high rank. The third for the services of a midwife.
dispensaries were supported by Another set of three comes from
subscriptions, and subscribers the Eastern Dispensary: one for
admission,
a second for
giving thanks
to the sponsor
and a third to inform
the sponsor that the
previous patient has died
and that there is a vacancy.
Along with these is a small
pamphlet laying out the plans for
the Surrey Dispensary (see page 8),
including a list of the subscribers.
Moving Image and Sound
Collection
Schizogony in P. knowlesi
Malaria, 1969.
This 16 mm black-and-white
cine-film made in 1969 by Dr G A
Butcher shows malaria parasites
bursting
out of their red
cells and attempting
to invade new red cells.
The original film was shown at a
meeting of the Royal Society of
Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Purchased earlier in the year,
the work was part of a project
concerned with the development
of a malaria vaccine and currently
there are trials of vaccines based
on merozoite proteins. This was
likely the first time anyone had
filmed this process.
Ephemera The ‘freak show’ postcards include with elephantiasis of the legs.
bearded ladies, midgets, giants, They were sold as souvenirs at
Victorian and Edwardian
morbidly obese people and a man the carnival or theatre where these
American trade cards,
people either performed a variety
c.1880–1910.
act or were exhibited, usually as
One major Library acquisition part of a touring show.
included a set of 60 attractive
See the cards of:
Victorian and Edwardian American
Scott’s Emulsion, Mansfield’s
trade cards and ‘freak show’
Capillaris, Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral,
souvenir postcards, purchased in
Parker’s Tonic and elephantiasis
December 2008. Mostly in colour
of the legs.
and approximately the size of a
postcard, the trade cards were
given away in pharmacies and
have an appealing image on one
TA KE A CLOSER LOOK...
side. The other side advertises
popular medicines, such as Ayer’s Want to keep on top of the
Cherry Pectoral cough mixture latest Library acquisitions?
(which contained heroin), Scott’s Sign up for one of our
Emulsion, Parker’s Tonic and RSS feeds.
Capillaris hair preparation.
Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008 | 9
Perspectives
Two Wellcome Library users tell their stories.
Andy Clark, independent
researcher
My own research is into the
history of the flea circus, and I am
particularly interested in the nature
of the performances and the
kinds of people who visited them.
The problem with researching flea
circuses is that very few people
have written any books on the
topic. Most of the information
I’ve found is in the form of small
snippets from a wide variety of
books on other topics.
Luckily, about the same time
I started my research, Google
launched its book search project.
I started periodically searching for
flea circuses or related phrases
then trawling through the mass of
books, eliminating those where
the phrase was just a metaphor
or there was nothing of interest.
Sometimes the resulting book
was available to read online and
sometimes it was only available in
10 | Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008
“Since discovering the
Wellcome Library I always
check to see if they have
a book first before looking
at other options.”
ANDY CLARK
a library. In one case I discovered
a fantastic description of a
performance, by a watchmaker:
“There on trestles he had set out
a tiny Chaise with four wheels,
this being mighty small; and then
he coaxes a Flea out of a box and
sets him to draw it.”
This led me to a rare book called
The Diary of a Surgeon in the Year
1751–1752 by John Knyveton,
which was not available from
any of the other local libraries.
WorldCat suggested that there
was a copy at the Wellcome
Library that could be viewed. I got
in contact and arranged a visit. The
registration process was simple
and the online ordering system
allowed me to maximise the time
spent on site reading. And the
staff are all helpful and friendly. The
location is very convenient as I can
make a trip in my lunch break or
take advantage of the long opening
hours. Since discovering the
Wellcome Library I always check to
see if they have a book first before
looking at other options.
Andy Clark has been researching
the history of the flea circus since
2004 and writing up his findings
online. He hopes to produce a book
on the subject.
Katherine Rawling,
postgraduate student
My first experience of the archive
collections at the Wellcome
Library came when my Master’s
dissertation loomed. At that stage
the processes of primary research
were still relatively new to me,
so advice from Library staff was
greatly appreciated. From that small
project, on femininity and madness,
it became clear that the discourses
of gender I’d been studying owed
much of their theoretical basis to
biological and medical concepts.
That brief summer gave me a taste
for the vast resources contained in
the Library.
Now, my doctoral thesis has
Wellcome materials at its heart.
As my research focuses on the
visual construction of gendered
madness through photographic
“The images database has
been invaluable. It is due
to the variety of records
held in the collections
that I’ve been able to
combine several source
types in my work”
Katherine Rawling
sources, easy access to the images
database has been invaluable. It is
due to the variety of records held in
the collections that I’ve been able
to combine several source types
in my work, from the private case
books of Holloway Sanatorium
to the published journals of the
Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. Being
able to browse mid-19th-century
clinical medicine volumes from
the open shelves has added yet
another dimension to my research.
On a more practical level, the life
of a research student is made
significantly easier by the spacious,
studious and comfortable
surroundings, making the prospect
of long hours of solitary research a
little less daunting.
Katherine Rawling is completing
her doctoral thesis – ‘Visualising
Mental Illness: Gender, medicine
and visual media, 1830–1918’ –
at Royal Holloway, University
of London.
Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008 | 11
Wellcome Image Awards 2008
From silkworm tracheas to meningitis-causing bacteria, our annual image
awards celebrated the beauty of biomedical science.
The ninth Wellcome Image
Awards were held at Wellcome
Collection in March 2008.
Presented by Vivienne Parry –
medicine and science
correspondent for the Times,
regular Radio 4 presenter and
chair of the judging panel – the
Awards celebrated the 15
scientists who created the 22
winning images.
The images, which are judged on the
basis of their quality, scientific content
and visual impact, show the ways
that traditional and cutting-edge
microscopy and imaging techniques
can visualise life and disease in
graphic and striking detail. Anne
Weston, for example, portrayed a
ruptured blood vessel with a
mutation in the Ephrin-B2 gene,
an abnormality that is similar to
those seen in the blood vessels
that feed developing cancers.
The awards attracted considerable
press coverage, appearing in the
12 | Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008
UK on BBC 1’s Ten O’Clock News,
with double-page spreads in the TA KE A CLOSER LOOK...
Guardian and the Times and
features in national newspapers Browse 2000 years of human
in France, Spain, Germany, culture in pictures on the
Denmark, Romania and as far Wellcome Images website.
afield as South America and
View the Wellcome Images
Australia.
Flickr photostream.
The winning images were put on
display in the Wellcome Collection
atrium for three months,
accompanied by a series of events
that included an evening for the
Wellcome Collection Club
members and two microscopy
workshops presented by Spike
Walker, creator of two of the
images, in which participants
had the opportunity to use
microscopes themselves.
An exhibition of 100 winning
images from 2008 and previous
Clockwise from above: Anne Weston with
years was shown at Tokyo’s her winning image of a ruptured blood vessel;
Miraikan Science Museum in May liquid crystal visualised under polarised light
(Karen Neill); colour-enhanced scanning
2008, and toured Japan for the electron micrograph of C. difficile
rest of the year. (Dave McCarthy and Annie Cavanagh).
UK PubMed Central
The Library continues to take part in enhancing UK PubMed Central,
the life sciences journal archive.
The Wellcome Library
supports the Wellcome Trust’s
open access requirements: an
electronic copy of all research
papers funded in whole or in
part by the Trust must be
made available from PubMed
Central and UK PubMed
Central as soon as possible,
and in any event within six
months of publication.
In 2008, the Library worked with
publishers to maximise the open
access publication options for
Trust-funded researchers, and
managed the supply and
development of the UK PubMed
Central (UKPMC) service on behalf
of the UKPMC Funders’ Group.
Major enhancement
programme
In May 2008 the Trust and
the seven other members
of the Funders’ Group granted
£1.1 million to support an exciting
programme of research and
development for UKPMC,
following a successful proposal
submitted by the British Library
on behalf of the UKPMC
consortium of suppliers.
The three-year programme
commenced in July 2008 and
comprises four interlinked strands
of work, which will be delivered
on the UKPMC website:
• enhancing information retrieval
and knowledge discovery
through the use of text-mining
technologies
• providing access to additional
relevant content, focusing on
clinical guidelines, technical
reports, conference
proceedings and other articles
of value that are not included in
traditional journal literature
• increasing the scope of the
bibliographic data searched
through UKPMC, including the
18 million citations currently
available in PubMed
•d
 eveloping extensive grant-
reporting functionality for
UKPMC funders and those that
they fund.
European goals
In December 2008 a meeting was
held at the Wellcome Trust,
attended by colleagues from
European biomedical research
funding organisations, to explore
the vision of a Europe PubMed
Central, to establish a single
Europe-wide repository for all
European-funded peer-reviewed
biomedical research papers. Much
positive discussion ensued and
there was a high level of interest
among participants in taking these
plans forward. To this end, the
Library will convene a working
group including representatives
from all interested organisations to
begin the detailed process of
scoping a Europe PMC.
Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008 | 13
 SUPER
MEDIC
PANEL
COSM
IMPRO
IMPRO
STERO

Publications
Find out more about a few of the books that have
been produced from the Library collections.
Medical London: City of
diseases, city of cures
By Richard Barnett, edited by
Mike Jay (Strange Attractor,
2008)
Medical London charts the many
roles that diseases, treatments
and cures have played in the city’s
sprawling story, and revealed
how London, in turn, has shaped
the professions and practices of
modern medicine.
The project team worked closely
with Library staff to utilise the full
range of resources, both textual
and pictorial. Medical London’s
unique visual style was inspired by
material chosen from Wellcome
Images; its rich text developed
through long hours spent in our
reading rooms.
Medical London is composed of
three parts: Sick City, a volume
of essays exploring some of
the threads that medicine has
14 | Wellcome Library: The Year in Review 2008
woven through London; a
comprehensive gazetteer, offering
a definitive guide to London’s
medical landscape; and six
elegantly designed maps for self-
guided walks across the city.
Living with Enza: The
forgotten story of Britain
and the great flu pandemic
of 1918
By Mark Honigsbaum
(Macmillan, 2009)
Mark Honigsbaum’s Living
with Enza tells the story of the
1918 Spanish flu pandemic,
and wonders whether society
is any better placed to face the
challenge of the next outbreak.
At the height of the pandemic,
policy makers were unprepared
and medical science was at a
loss to explain, or predict, how
the disease would progress.
The book documents the fight
to control the disease and the
attempts to avoid a recurrence.
In a particularly timely work given
the recent swine flu outbreak,
Honigsbaum looks at the lessons
of the past, and charts how
medical history can shape the
policies of healthcare today.
“Whenever I had a question
about the virology of influenza,
and the latest information
about the virus’s genome, all
I had to do was consult the
most recent textbooks in the
Wellcome’s medicine and science
collections,” says the author.
Doctor of Love: James
Graham and his celestial bed
By Lydia Syson (Alma, 2008)
James Graham has been widely
termed the world’s first sex
therapist, and he was certainly
one of the most charismatic and
complex characters of the 18th
century. Seeking to bring the
sublime to the lives of married
DEPIC
NOTEB
landscape
FRESC
RECIP
ELIXIR
ABRAC
couples, Graham’s magnificent Blood and Guts: A history WAR D
creation the ‘Celestial Bed’ at of surgery TATTO
the Temple of Health tapped DRUG
By Richard Hollingham, AMPU
into all the excitement that the
foreword by Michael Mosley
Enlightenment had to offer. DREAM
(BBC Books, 2008)
With the aid of mind-altering
EASEL
Richard Hollingham’s book, which SOLO
gases, electricity and magnetism,
accompanied the BBC 4 series of ANTIQ
Grant sought to promote the goal
the same name, provides a grand TRIBE
of perfect sexual union and, of
and often grisly tour of the history
course, perfect offspring. EPIST
of surgery.
History of Medicine: A very HOLY
Chapters on Galen and the SEX A
short introduction
gladiators he rebuilt, Robert EPID
By William Bynum (Oxford Liston’s 30-second amputation, NATUR
University Press, 2008) and the world’s first hand
DRAG
transplant complement the heroic
OUP’s ‘VSI’ series has become INSTR
tales of surgeon Archibald
an invaluable part of the ANTED
McIndoe and the Guinea Pig Club,
publishing world. Their compact, exposed
the soldiers who suffered severe
almost pocket size allows you TEXTIL
facial injuries during World War II.
to take them wherever you go.
ILLUM
With this new addition to the Hollingham writes: “If there is one
series, Emeritus Professor William single institution that made this
EMPO
Bynum allows you to dip into the book possible it is the Wellcome DISSE
history of medicine – and it is, in Library. I have spent many happy BLADD
his own words, “a short book on hours there, leafing through old CAVIT
a very big subject”. books, papers and journals.” PERUV
COMP
GENO
alternative
ZYGO
ROCO
PROG
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Wellcome Library
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