Medical Historical Library: Prints and Photographs

Historical Library | Medical Library

Portrait eines Cholera Praeservativ Mannes (Cholera Preventive Costume), pen lithograph, hand colored, 1832, Clements C. Fry Print Collection, cat. 43.1.

This print, published at the time of the great cholera epidemic in Europe and America, is one of nearly 2000 prints and drawings on medical subjects in the Clements C. Fry Collection held by the Historial Library.

Prints and Photographs

Fry Print Collection

The Clements C. Fry Print Collection is a superb collection of medical prints, especially European medical satirical prints of the 18th and 19th centuries. A printed catalog by Susan Wheeler with small black-and-white images of over 1600 prints in the collection has recently been published: Five hundred years of medicine in art: an illustrated catalogue of prints and drawings in the Clements C. Fry Collection in the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University. Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Press, 2001.

With the Fry collection is housed an uncataloged group of 19th century Japanese medical prints on infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles.

One of the gems of the Historical Library is the collection of 83 mid-19th century oil paintings rendered by Western-trained artist Lam Qua of Chinese patients with tumors under the care of Yale-trained medical missionary Peter Parker.

Lam Qua Portaits in the Medical Digital Library

Lam Qua Portraits in Tabular Format with the Finding Aid to the Peter Parker Collection

Images of individuals

The Library holds thousands of prints or photographs of individuals. The collection is especially rich in prints of pre-1900 individuals and in 20th century photographs of individuals associated with Yale. There is a good finding aid to these materials in the Library.

Other categories of images.

We have photographs related to Yale School of Medicine including graduation photographs, members of departments, buildings, laboratories, and surgical operations.

Many rare books have reproducible illustrations. The library is especially rich in the works of the great artist/anatomists.

How to obtain copies of images

Photographs in black and white or color, slides, or scans can be made of any of these illustrative materials in our collection through Yale MedMedia Group. Medmedia Group will bill the patron for the cost of making and sending a copy of the image. For patrons other than Yale faculty, staff, and graduate students, or those publishing in academic books with low press runs, the fee for reproducing an image is $25 and is payable to the Medical Library. There is a pdf form for permission which can be downloaded.

Because the staff is small, we are unable to undertake large or rush orders or to do photo research for patrons.

Historical Library Cushing/Whitney Medical Library Yale University Library Medical Center Yale University