All posts in Historical Collection

Aristotle's History of Animals

Aristotle and biology

Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης 384-322 BCE) was an Ancient Greek philosopher. In our collection is a copy of his “Complete works (Opera Omnia)”, comprising of chapters devoted to the study of animals. (The history of animals, Movement of Animals, and Parts of animals). The work is in Greek with a Latin…

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LSHTM Library celebrates South Asian Heritage Month July 18-August 17 2024. LSHTM Library Rare Book Blog Series No. 11. August 2024

South Asian Heritage Month takes place every year ending on the anniversary of Partition of the Indian Sub-Continent on 17 August 1947 by which the Indian subcontinent was divided into India, West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

In the LSHTM Library there are numerous books about…

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Front covers of "Labour and life of the people"

Labour and life of the people / Charles Booth. – London : Williams and Norgate, 1889-1891.

Four editions of Booth’s work were published, based on his notebooks, the version in our collection comprising three volumes including an appendix with maps. The work paints a vivid picture of the social conditions in London in the late 19th century. For much of the book, Booth is the…

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Title page of Arthur Shadwell's "The London water supply" - 1989

The London water supply / by Arthur Shadwell – London : Longmans Green & Co, 1899.

A work on the water supply of London, written one year after the East End drought of 1989

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Eleanor Anne Ormerod (1828-1901) : agricultural entomologist and an early authority on insect pest control. LSHTM Rare Book Blog series No. 10. June 2024

From the seventeenth century, women have played a small but significant role in exploring the world of insects by listing, drawing, and collecting them. Some women have also observed and recorded the extraordinary life histories of insects. Eleanor Anne Ormerod (1828-1901) did all this before becoming the first woman…

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Bookplate of A Treatise on the small-pox by Lobb

Treatise on the small pox : in two parts, by Theophilus Lobb, MD. – London : printed for T. Woodward, 1731.

https://discover.lshtm.ac.uk/permalink/44HYG_INST/1m9295r/alma991000243259703736 (catalogue entry – no digitized version available)

Theophilus Lobb, M.D.  was a Fellow of the Royal Society (1678-1763). His biography makes interesting reading (1). Born to a pastor of independent dissenters in London, his education and career combined ministry…

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The Historical Collection: Cottage hospitals general, fever, and convalescent by Henry C. Burdett

Today, we will take a quick look at Henry C. Burdett’s book Cottage Hospitals General, Fever, and Convalescent. This book is part of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Library’s historical collection and can be found under the Barnard Classification Scheme classmark of SYBH (Cottage Hospitals…

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Picture of Charles Stille, author of History of the United States Sanitary Commission.

History of the United States Sanitary Commission

History of the United States Sanitary Commission / by Charles J Stillé – New York : Hurd and Houghton, 1868.

For digitized copy (Wellcome Collection) follow this link:

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fynmu6gu

Founded in 1861 to support sick and wounded soldiers of the U.S. Army (Union Army) during the American Civil…

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The Historical Collection: Small Pox and the debate over early vaccination

In this blogpost we take a look at a couple of books found in the Reece Collection, a collection of items largely on the topics of small pox and early vaccination once owned by Richard J Reece.

In the early 19th century, the advent of vaccination sparked intense debates within…

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Bookplate of Skene Library

Skene Library– finding the provenance

One of our current projects in the Collections Team is going through our historical collections and enhancing the catalogue records so that they conform to modern standards for rare books. One aspect of this process are the fields on the records relating to the provenance of the book in question…

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