The Galter Library is open to Northwestern University faculty and staff members, students, and alumni; however, the Special Collections Department is open to scholars who wish to use the Library's historical materials. Please contact us prior to coming to the Library for information on how to access the collection. We can be reached at 312-503-1913 or 312-503-8109, by e-mail, or by U.S. mail: 303 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611.

Reference and research services are available in person and by telephone, fax, e-mail or postal service. Services are available 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, preferably by appointment.

Some services such as photocopying, photography, and research require a fee; please contact the Librarian for details.

For a list of relevant resources, see the History of Medicine GalterList complied by librarians.

Special Collections consists of three primary collections

The Archibald Church History of Medicine Collection, totaling 5,000 volumes

The A. D. Black History of Dentistry Collection, containing 1,390 volumes

G.V. Black Collection, 43 manuscripts, 100 letters and photographs

The Kretschmer collection on urology

Special Collections also includes:

• Approximately 4,000 medical and dental portraits, caricatures, and engravings
• A small manuscript collection representing physicians such as J.B. Murphy, William Osler, and Benjamin Rush
• Various artifacts, such as medical & dental instruments and microscopes
• Manuscript material from the Northwestern University Medical School and Dental Schools

Particular strengths include works by:

William Harvey, Ambrose Pare, Thomas Browne, John Hunter, and selected figures in Chicago medicine and dentistry

Works before 1800 include:

• Incunabula: four works of Saints Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus and Pietro d'Argellata.
• Sixteenth Century: 200 items, including original editions of Ambrose Pare and AndreasVesalius
• Seventeenth Century: 830 works including first editions of William Harvey, Ambrose Pare, John Mayow and Clopton Havers
• Eighteenth Century: 2,200 works by authors including Giovanni Battista Morgagni, Percival Pott, and Antonio Valsalva

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The Galter Health Sciences Library staff has digitized Leslie B. Arey's 1979 edition of Northwestern University Medical School: 1859-1979, a pioneer in educational reform.  Authored by the late Leslie B. Arey, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Anatomy, the book, a revised and extended version of the centennial edition (1959) was published in 1979.   This edition is generally used when referencing the history of the medical school.

 

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The history of medicine does not begin and end at any particular date. [1]

The Galter Health Sciences Library at Northwestern University was known as the Archibald Church Medical Library from 1927 to 1990. Dr. Church was associated with the Medical School for 25 years, first as a professor and then as chair of nervous and mental diseases and medical jurisprudence. His name is now given specifically to the library's historical book collection. This is appropriate, for it was a gift from Dr. and Mrs. Church which formed the first endowment the library received.

Irving Cutter (1875-1945), dean of the Medical School from 1925 to 1941, was responsible for the collection's extensive development. Cutter began his working life as a book salesman for the Ginn Company and remained a "bookman" all his life. Not surprisingly, Dean Cutter saw the Medical Library as his personal project, and during his tenure expanded its holdings from 13,000 to nearly 92,000 volumes.

Most importantly for the historical collections, Cutter capitalized on the Great Depression by buying up European rarities for the library at bargain prices. Dean Cutter was a noted rare book collector in private life, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology and William Harveyiana, and was a correspondent of another noted medical bookman, Harvey Cushing of Yale. Cutter's friendly rivalry with Cushing, another Harvey collector, was indirectly responsible for Yale and Northwestern possessing two of the most complete collections of William Harvey in the country; Cutter and Cushing bequeathed their private collections to their respective employers upon their deaths. [2]

It was Dean Cutter's historical perspective, as much as his bookmanship, that resulted in the Church collection's depth and excellence. Cutter saw the medical library as "an agent for the diffusion of culture." [3] He considered historical works within that library to have a humanistic value, both cultural and educational, that was more important than their status as "rare books." In his role as medical educator, Cutter frequently alluded to the role medical history had played in the "high standards and cultivation of the British medical profession, and felt that it would be of great value in raising our standards in this country if it received more general support." [4] For this reason the Church collection has been called a "working collection of medical classics" that represent "the major advances and theories dotting the landscape of medical history." [5]

1. G.S.T. Cavanaugh. (1975). A further perspective on medical history collecting. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 63 (1): 47.
2. John F. Fulton. (1943). The letters and libraries of Irving S. Cutter and Harvey Cushing. Quarterly Bulletin of the Northwestern University Medical School, 20 (1): 63.
3. James B. Herrick. (1943). The function of a library in a medical school. Quarterly Bulletin of the Northwestern University Medical School, 20 (1): 70.
4. Francis R. Packard. (1943). Irving S. Cutter: Medical historian and teacher. Quarterly Bulletin of the Northwestern University Medical School, 20 (1): 128.
5. Northwestern University Medical School Magazine (September 1965): 23. Return to top

In 1896, Dr. G.V. Black and Dr. Theodore Menges purchased personal libraries of many different American dentists to establish a dental collection at Northwestern University Dental School. William H. Trueman, an avid collector of pre-1800 dental literature, donated his collection to the Dental School in 1925. Books, prints, and paintings by the French, English, Dutch, and Flemish were collected by Dr. William Bebb during two European visits in the early 1920s. A special effort was made to collect early works on anesthesia, a topic of particular interest to the founders.

The 1,390 rare books in the Black History of Dentistry Collection include: an 11th century illumination from a breviary of St. Apollonia's martyrdom; Pietro d'Argellata's "Cirugia Magistri" (Venice, 1499); the first book on dentistry, entitled "Arznebuch" (1594); three editions of Pierre Fauchard's (Father of Dentistry) book, "Surgeon Dentist," dated 1728, 1746, 1766 and an English translation in 1946; Practical Observations on the Human Teeth (1783) by the first dentist to practice in the United States, Dr. Robert Wooffendale; Dr. Joseph J.F. Lemaire's early collection of teeth carved from ivory; a letter from Dr. John Greenwood to Lt. General George Washington on his denture charges (1799); and contributed research papers, letters, data and some unpublished materials by the Father of Modern Dentistry, Dr. Greene Vardiman Black.

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Guide to the Digitized Collection of G.V. Black Manuscripts, Correspondence and Photographs in the Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University

The Northwestern University G.V. Black collection contains 43 manuscripts, 100 letters and photographs covering the period between 1867 and 1915. Some of the more important items in the collection are: correspondence between Dr. Black and Dr. Frederick S. McKay from the turn of the century that focus on mottled enamel of teeth and early hypotheses on water and fluoridation; correspondence, program announcements and other ephemera from the World Dental Congress held in conjunction with the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893; a manuscript on zoo chemistry.

Finding Aid in HTML format
Finding Aid in raw XML format
Searchable Finding Aid

Northwestern University Finding Aid Collections Online

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Special Collections serves as a valuable resource for information on faculty members and graduates of the Medical and Dental Schools and its predecessors, the Chicago Medical College and University Dental College, American College of Dental Surgery & Northwestern College of Dental Surgery, as well as the Women's Medical College. Among its holdings are class photographs, yearbooks, and selected administrative correspondence, including that of Nathan Smith Davis, founder of the American Medical Association and the Chicago Medical College and G. V. Black, founder of the Dental School.

MEDICAL SCHOOL MATERIALS

Some highlights of historical materials related to Northwestern University Medical School and its predecessors

PORTRAITS

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL

Group Class Portraits

1881, 1884, 1888, 1891-1893, 1898-1899, 1901-1904, 1909, 1916-1917, 1920, 1926-1927, 1929, 1931, 1933-1939, 1940-1954, 1954-1957, 1959, 1960-1964, 1965-1974, 1989---

Comments:

• Group class portraits have traditionally been taken during the junior year of medical school
• During the 1960's and 1970's Northwestern University Medical School did not consider a student as "graduated" until after one year of internship/residency was completed. So, for example, the actual graduation date is one year prior to the official school record of graduation.

Class Portraits - Individuals

1893-1918

1924

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MEDICAL SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL QUARTERLY BULLETIN

1924-1959

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENTS

1859-1986

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER MAGAZINE

1974-1984

WOMAN'S HOSPITAL MEDICAL COLLEGE
WOMAN'S MEDICAL COLLEGE OF CHICAGO

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY WOMAN'S MEDICAL SCHOOL BULLETINS

1871-1872 to 1901-1902

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY WOMAN'S MEDICAL SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENTS

1891-1901

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PAPERS OF INDIVIDUALS:

 For instance, the papers of Dr. Nathan Smith Davis, co-founder of the AMA are housed here. Please contact the Special Collections Librarian to inquire about the availability of a specific individuals papers.

 

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PUBLICATIONS BY AND ABOUT THE STUDENTS

PAPERS SUBMITTED FOR ENTRANCE INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL

1896-1928

NU ANNUAL COMMENCEMENTS

1925-1936, 1960-1966

SYLLABUS

(Northwestern University Yearbook, which includes the medical school)

1886-1926, 1928-1946, 1965, 1968, 1971, 1973-1975

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FACULTY & DEPARTMENTAL PUBLICATIONS

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY CHECKLIST OF FACULTY PUBLICATIONS

1859-1967

DEPARTMENTAL PUBLICATIONS

* Department of Medicine Publications

1935-1947

* Department of Nervous & Mental Disorders Collected Reprints

1912-1950

* Institute of Neurology Publications

1924-1959

* School of Pharmacy Announcements

1886-1917

* Contributions for the Department of Physiology & Pharmacology

July 1918-June 1971

* Division of Surgery Publications

1938-1964

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OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Northwestern University Medical School, 1859-1979
Leslie B. Arey
A revision and extension of the 1959 Centennial edition
Copies are kept in the Reference Collection and in the stacks
W19 N879A

Woman's Medical School, Northwestern University : (Woman's Medical College of Chicago) : the institution and its founders : class histories, 1870-1896 / Avis Smith ... [et al.] ; editors, Eliza H. Root, H. G. Cutler ; collaborators, Marie J. Mergler ... [et al.] Chicago, H. G. Cutler, 1896. 610.71773 N81w 1896

WARD ROUNDS
v.1,1984--
quarterly
Office of Publications and Public Relations, Northwestern University Medical School

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Anatomy of Gender

• Ron Sims, MA, The Anatomy of Gender, Library Notes #39 (Winter 2006)

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This page last updated Apr 9, 2009.