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Digital Library Collections

About the Medical Digital Library

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Digital Library is a growing collection of digital resources made available on the Web for scholarship. The Medical Digital Library Committee coordinates the library's digitization activities. Its goals include expanding access to the library's unique collections for scholarly research, and life-cycle management of digital objects. The collections are powered by Greenstone digital library software.

Peter Parker. Peter Parker Collection
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. 		 
Andreas Vesalius. Portrait Engravings Collection
In the era before photography, portrait engravings were the only means of distributing images of famous individuals, including noted physicians and scientists. Many of these portraits were engraved from oil paintings, though some were based on sketches from life. Historians have recently begun to examine them for insights into the medical profession’s self-image. The Historical Library’s engraved portraits number in the thousands, and date from the sixteenth to the late-nineteenth century. They are stored in folders by sizes: small, medium, and large. The project to scan them for the Digital Library is ongoing. We have begun with the Vesalius portraits, many collected by Harvey Cushing, and are continuing with the portraits in the medium size folders, arranged alphabetically.
 

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