Knowledge keepers

Knowledge keepers

The content and character of the doctors’ library largely reflects the society in which it was created – where wealthy, white, non-disabled, European men occupied a position of great privilege.

Owning a substantial number of books – and having the literacy skills to read them – was expensive and mostly reserved for the elite. During the 17th–19th centuries, doctors were generally wealthy and belonged to the upper classes, whose wealth was broadly underpinned by British economic successes that arose from imperial and colonial exploitation at this time.

European colonial expansion was partly motivated by the search for natural resources that could become profitable crops and effective medical remedies. A consequence of this drive to increase medical knowledge was that indigenous peoples, and their knowledge of their environment, were exploited without acknowledgement. They were also presented to European audiences as ignorant or barbaric.

Because large-scale book ownership was costly, a market for cheaper medical books for lay people – including women – flourished. Printed in vernacular (local) languages rather than in Latin, these volumes were smaller and less sumptuous. They did not enter the doctors’ library until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when collecting them became fashionable.

Please be aware that this sectioncontains content related to colonial history, the exploitation of people and resources, the objectification of disabled people, pregnancy and childbirth.

Tobacco

Stirpium adversaria nova [New observations on plants]
Pierre Pena and Matthias de L'Obel, published London, 1571
CN12720

Pena and L’Obel’s compendium of plants includes the first printed report and illustrations of several plants of the Americas, including pitcher plants (Sarracenia) and the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas).

This page shows the earliest European illustration of the tobacco plant (Nicotiana tabacum), recognisable today from the many ornamental varieties that are commonly grown in gardens. The text describes it as ‘Indorum Sana Sancta’, the ‘holy healing herb of the Indies’. It is accompanied by a small image of a stereotyped native American smoking a long pipe, captioned ‘Nicotiana inserted into the funnel from which the Indians and sailors draw smoke’.

In common with four other illustrations, the picture of tobacco was printed on a separate piece of paper and then stuck into the book: it seems that the woodcuts from which they were printed were produced last-minute, after the book had been completed, creating an impression that this is the very cutting edge of knowledge.

Donated by Grace Pierrepont (1635–1703)

Open book with illustration of an orangutan

Photography by John Chase

An orangutan from Borneo

A voyage to and from the island of Borneo in the East-Indies …
Daniel Beeckman, artist and engraver unknown, published London, 1718
CN121360

This is the first European printed illustration of an orangutan. It appears in the account of a colonising voyage to the island of Borneo, South-East Asia. During this journey, staff of the East India Company bought pepper and other valuable commodities under false pretences, pretending to be independent traders and not part of the East India Company.

The prevailing racist attitudes of the time are manifest in Beeckman’s description of the orangutan as looking like people from the south of the African continent, described with a racist epithet. Comparisons such as these reflected colonial biases used to justify the exploitation of non-European peoples and cultures. Beeckman bought a young orangutan ‘out of curiosity’, which only lived for 7 more months.

The annotations around the illustration show that it was used by RCP librarian George Edwards (1694–1773) when researching his four-volume Gleanings of natural history (published between 1758 and 1764); an important work of natural history.

Purchased with support from the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries, October 2023

Historical representations of disability

De Monstrum book front piece — Photography John Chase

De monstrorum caussis, natura et differentiis [On the causes, nature and differences of monsters]
Fortunio Liceti, drawing by Giovanni Battista Bissoni, engraved by MD, published Padua, 1634
CN18680

This lavish engraving is a difficult image to view. People with visible bodily differences are displayed alongside a range of mythical creatures as if there’s no distinction between the two. Arranged like acrobats at a circus, they are presented purely as entertainment to the viewer.

Historical images of what were once called ‘monsters’ – people whose bodies didn’t fit the societal norm – are one expression of how scientific and medical progress were often built on the exploitation and abuse of disadvantaged groups, including disabled people. Disabled people, people of colour, LGBTQ+ people and other marginalised groups continue to have disproportionately poor health outcomes compared to more privileged groups today.

Two copies owned by the library: one acquired before 1757, the second bequeathed by David Lloyd Roberts FRCP (1835–1920)

Historical representations of disability were explored in more detail in the RCP exhibition ‘Re-framing disability’

Photography by John Chase

Everyday health

The castel of helth
Thomas Elyot, published London, 1561
CN13845

The castel of helth is an example of the many small 16th- and 17th-century books, written in English, that were marketed to non-specialist audiences with advice about how to manage their own, and their families’, health.

Doctors at the time these books were printed generally rejected them as crude and unsophisticated – and did not consider them valuable sources of information. By the early 20th century, however, they had become collectors’ items sought after by medical bibliophiles such as gynaecologist David Lloyd Roberts and obstetrician Herbert Ritchie Spencer, who both donated books such as these from their personal collections to the RCP.

This copy bears the signatures of several unidentified people in the margins of the pages – John Jones, Robert Luke, William Kenrik and William Hughes – as well as two drawings by children: a ship and a carriage.

Bequeathed by David Lloyd Roberts FRCP (1835–1920)

Photography by John Chase

Diagnosis by urine

The seynge of urynes
Anonymous, published London, 1548
CN15755-2

This is a comparatively rare example of the library buying a book to add to the collection: it paid the substantial sum of £2 10s 0d for this small book in 1903 (about £200 today), showing that everyday people’s medical knowledge had become desirable in the doctors’ library.

Diagnosis by uroscopy – the examination of a urine sample – was a key medical diagnostic tool before the use of X-rays or blood tests. This book lists ‘all the couloures that urynes be of’, from ‘whyte as Clay water of a well’ (which indicates a bad stomach and liver) to ‘blacke as a cole’ (which indicates that death is imminent).

The right-hand side of the title page was damaged and lost at some point, and replaced with a copy made by hand, known as a ‘pen facsimile’. Though they look as though they were printed, most of the text, two of the three urine flasks and all the decorative panel at the bottom were drawn by hand, to mimic a printed book.

Purchased by the library, May 1903

Epiphanie medicorum [Epiphanies of doctors]
Ulrich Pinder, Nuremberg, 1506
CN13555

These 16th century German urine wheel illustrations show the range of colours that physicians and lay people would be looking for.

Acquired after 1931

Pregnancy and childbirth

Book contents page — Photography John Chase

The birth of man-kinde
Eucharius Rösslin, translated by Thomas Raynalde, published London, 1634
CN20297

This best-selling compendium of medical advice about pregnancy and labour was popular for over 100 years after it was first published in the 1530s. It was translated into many languages, showing the widespread need for medical guidance on this subject.

There are a number of brownish stains in this copy of the book. It is tempting to speculate that they were made by bodily fluids when the book was used as a practical guide during childbirth. So far testing of the stains has proven inconclusive.

Bequeathed by David Lloyd Roberts FRCP (1835–1920)

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