The Historical Library houses one of the world’s finest historical medical collections. The collection contains over 130,000 books, bound manuscripts, journals and pamphlets. This includes 325 incunabula, which are books printed between 1450 and 1500, a wonderful Renaissance, Arabic and Persian manuscript collection along with hundreds of bound manuscripts form the 16th to the 20th centuries.

The Cushing/Whitney Historical Library also houses the Fry Collection of Prints and Drawings that spans five centuries, an additional 2500 portrait engravings and over 2000 original photographs. We have an artifact collection that includes over 1,000 medical and scientific instruments and the Streeter Collection of Weights and Measures containing several thousands items.

The Preservation Librarian for the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library began in August 2005 to establish a program that will preserve and conserve these collections. The exhibit, which will be on view from March 14th-June 11th , illustrates issues of preservation and solutions that can be achieved to safeguard this priceless collection.

Curated by Sarah Burge. Photos by John Curtis, Yale Medicine.