Historical Medical Images Online

A graduate student recently asked me about where she might find historical medical images online. I am posting these resources here because this is a recurring topic of interest among faculty and students in both art history and studio arts. Do you have other suggestions? Please share them with us.

Wellcome Images
Over 40,000 current and historical medical images; "Wellcome Images is one of the world's richest and most unique collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science." Explore Wellcome images here.

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM)
"Provides access to nearly 70,000 images in the collections of the History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the U.S National Library of Medicine (NLM)." Search for IHM images here.

Pictures of Science: 700 Years of Scientific and Medical Illustration (New York Public Library)
"Hundreds of images from the thirteenth through the early twentieth century, in the fields of astronomy, chemistry, geology, mathematics, medicine, and physics, as represented by manuscript illuminations, engravings, lithographs, and photographs." Discover Pictures of Science images from the NYPL Digital Gallery here.

Historical Medical Poster Collection (Yale's Cushing/Whitney Medical Library)
"The collection ranges from large size posters meant to be pasted on the sides of buildings and viewed from afar to small glossy placards designed for store windows...The collection focuses primarily on public health communications, but also has examples of medical product advertising, recruiting, and aid and relief solicitations." Find images from the Historical Medical Poster Collection here.

Image: Clemente Susini, Wax anatomical figure of reclining woman, 1771-1800, Florence.Science Museum, London, Wellcome Image. Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

New York Public Library's Digital Gallery

The New York Public Library provides access to over 700,000 images digitized from the Library's holdings through its Digital Gallery. Items include illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs, illustrated books, postcards, and more. Contents may be browsed via the collections guides, broad subject categories (Arts & Literature; Cities & Buildings; Culture & Society; History & Geography; Industry & Technology; Nature & Science; and Printing & Graphics), Subjects, Names, and Library Divisions. Keyword and advanced search options are available.

Scholars and students across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences are sure to find materials of interest in the Digital Gallery. The diverse collections represented are too numerous to list here, but they include:

• Africana & Black History
• After Columbus: Four-hundred Years of Native American Portraiture
• Changing New York: Photographs by Berenice Abbott, 1935-1938
• Classic Illustrated Zoologies and Related Works, 1550-1900
• Ellis Island Photographs from the Collection of William Williams, Commissioner of Immigration, 1902-1913
• Icons and Images of Cultures: Plate Books from the Russian Empire, Early Soviet Russia, and Eastern Europe, 1730-1935
• Illuminated Hebrew Manuscripts
• The Luso-Hispanic New World in Early Prints and Photographs
• Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts from Western Europe
• The Middle East and in Early Prints and Photographs
• Nature Illustrated: Flowers, Plants, and Trees, 1550-1900
• A New Nation: The Thomas Addis Emmet Collection of Illustrations Relating to the American Revolution and Early United States History
• Ornament and Pattern: Pre-Victorian to Art Deco
• Pictures of Science: 700 Years of Scientific and Medical Illustration
• Picturing America, 1497-1899: Prints, Maps, and Drawings bearing on the New World Discoveries and on the Development of the Territory that is now the United States
• Posters of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1922
• Russia and Eastern Europe in Rare Photographs, 1860- 1945
• Samuel Putnam Avery Print Collection and Related Works
• Turn of the Century Posters
• William Blake: Illustrated Books
• Woman Suffrage and Feminism Photographs in the Schwimmer-Lloyd Collection
• Wonders: Images of the Ancient World
• World War I Photograph Albums and Postcards
• Yiddish Theatre Placards: Buenos Aires and New York
• and much more!
  

Image: Kitagawa, Utamaro, 1753?-1806. Nibijin ude-zumô (Arm-wrestling between two beauties). ca. 1793. From the New York Public Library, Digital Gallery.