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Book Display: World Environment Day 2024

World Environment Day, observed annually on 5 June, serves as a global platform for raising awareness and prompting action for environmental protection. Established by the United Nations in 1973, this day has become one of the most significant global events dedicated to environmental advocacy, engaging individuals, communities, and governments in…

Historical Collection: The Victorian meat market, tainted meat, and public health crisis—a look at W. Wylde’s The Inspection of Meat. 

This is a blog post about the book “The Inspection of Meat: A Guide and Instruction Book to Officers Supervising Contract-Meat and to All Sanitary Inspectors Embodying the Teaching Imparted to the Army Service Corps.” By W. Wylde. This item is part of the London School of Hygiene and…

Indian medicinal plants : an early twentieth  century illustrated reference book by the Indian physicians K.R. Kirtikar and B.D. Basu LSHTM Rare Book Blog series No. 9. February 2024.

In those parts of the world with a written language, the first organisms in the natural world to be studied, documented and figured were plants in recognition of their economic value in agriculture, nutrition, health and well-being.  In Europe these herbals, as they are called, were hand-written in…

Understanding puerperal fever in the eighteenth century : the work of John Leake (1729-1792), man-midwife. LSHTM Rare Books Blog No. 8 January 2024.

In the 18th and 19th centuries and until the 20th Century the death of women in childbirth or shortly afterwards was a common occurrence. One early treatise on puerperal fever was written by John Leake, a physician and male midwife:  Practical observations on the child-bed fever, first published in…

It’s ‘Dry January’ Month!

Devised by the Alcohol Change UK charity, ‘Dry January’ was created to encourage people to take a break from drinking alcohol for one month. The Alcohol Change UK works to reduce alcohol harm and to provide information and support around drinking. Taking a month off drinking allows people to start…

Johann Gottfried Bremser’s early 19th century medical books on parasitic worms with hand-coloured plates. LSHTM Rare Books Blog Series No. 7. August 2023

The Austrian physician Johann Gottfried Bremser (1767-1827) was born in Wertheim am Main in present-day Germany. He studied medicine in Jena and Vienna where he obtained a licence to practice medicine in 1797. Bremser made a special study of parasitic worm infections in humans and travelled to Paris…