Blogs

The Royal College of Physicians has loaned one of its most treasured objects to the Garden Museum’s exhibition Seeds of Exchange: Canton and London in the 1700s.

A new display in the RCP Treasures Room, ‘The Ghost in the Library’, showcases several books that Henry Pierrepont’s personal librarian used to create the massive – but missing – Mathematical collections and translations. The display has been researched and curated by doctoral student Constance Hardesty, who has written this blog post about it.

On Saturday 20 September 2025, we welcomed over 400 people to the RCP at Regent’s Park as part of the London Open House Festival. Visitors enjoyed the chance to explore our Grade-I listed building from top to bottom, as well as hearing from expert guides and viewing original architectural plans of the building.

Are you curious about what the RCP Museum gets up to in a year? Well read on for some highlights of what we accomplished in 2025!

1 December 2025 marks the 37th World AIDS Day. The Royal College of Physicians Archives, Heritage Library and Museum Collections continue to seek donations of material relating to the history of HIV/AIDS.

Have you seen Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein, and are you wondering how much is rooted in actual medical history? Let’s have a closer look. 

Warning! Contains spoilers within!

Artist and PhD candidate Catherine James explains her art installation Making Visible, answering the question "but why are the books blue?"

Explore three memento mori objects in the museum this spooky season.

The RCP's latest exhibition, A Body of Knowledge, launched on 11th September 2025. On that occasion Katie Birkwood, rare books librarian and curator of the exhibition, gave a speech reflecting upon a career in libraries, the RCP library specifically and the exhibition.

Doctoral researcher and artist Catherine James explores the Dorchester family's role in the history of the RCP's library.