Archibald Church

History of Medicine Collection

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.