RCPSG Heritage

Scotland & Medicine – Collections Showcase An online event featuring presentations from members of the Scotland & Medicine network of museums, archives and libraries

Join Scotland & Medicine for a very special showcase highlighting the amazing medical collections of Scottish museums, libraries and archives.
📆Tuesday, 10th March, 2026
🕙3pm GMT
📍Online
🎫Free
Book your place: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scotland-m...

A list of alchemical symbols written in black and red ink

Fancy a little bit of alchemy for a Wednesday afternoon?

Here are some lovely alchemical symbols including mercury, lead, copper, arsenic and gold which have been added to the flyleaf of Somniorum Synesiorum, omnis generis insomnia explicantes, libri IIII published in 1562 by Girolamo Cardano.

A cosy dining room with a table set for tea, featuring cakes, pastries and teacups on a floral tablecloth.

Happy 10th birthday Art UK 🎉 #ArtUK10thBirthday

On our birthday we have reached a huge one million artworks on Art UK!

Discover more and celebrate with us 👉 https://artuk.org/

🧑‍🎨 Peggy Angus (1904–1993) © estate of Peggy Angus. All rights reserved, 2026 DACS. 📷 City of London Corporation

Scotland & Medicine – Collections Showcase An online event featuring presentations from members of the Scotland & Medicine network of museums, archives and libraries

Scotland & Medicine are hosting a special online event on Tuesday 10th March at 3pm which will bring together anyone interested in medical collections to hear an introduction to the holdings of 15 museums, archives and libraries across Scotland.

Free to attend!
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scotland-m...

An open wooden box lined with green velvet. The box contains a trephine set made from metal. Some instruments have black wooden handles. There is also a small brush with ivory handle.

One of the oldest surgical instruments in our museum collection is this amazing trephine set dating from c.1740. It was made by Edward Stanton of London and contains 4 trephines, forceps, raspatory, lenticular, elevator and a tiny brush

Our Macewen exhibition will be on until July 2026 so there's still plenty of time to come along and learn about this remarkable, surgical pioneer.

Advert from a surgical instrument catalogue for the "improved gastroscope". The advert has two illustrations showing a side on view of the human head and torso. The internal organs and skeleton can be seen. A gastroscope (a long metal tube) is inserted down the throat into the stomach

Rigid gastroscope, Mayer & Meltzer catalogue, c1914. Due to limitations in flexibility, the patient had to be positioned so that the gastroscope could simply slide down the oesophagus 😱. It would then be rotated to visualise all areas of the stomach.

A handwritten recipe for "pan kakes" which includes 2 pound of flour, six eggs, a pound of sugar, and milk.

Happy #PancakeDay everyone! Here's an 18th century recipe for some tasty "Pan Kakes".

The recipe is taken from a herbal notebook which contains remedies and medicines but also has a section on cooking and baking.

Enjoy! 🥞

#pancakes #shrovetuesday

Illustration from Laennec's book "" showing his design for the first stethoscope which is a tube of wood with detachable sections

A Laennec stethoscope from our collection. It is made of wood and is taken apart to show the three separate sections of the instrument

Renee Laennec, the inventor of the stethoscope, was born #OTD in 1781 🥳

The first stethoscope was made out of wood with 3 detachable parts for listening to the sounds of the lungs and heart 🫁🫀

#stethoscope #histmed

An ivory handle with a metal attachment. there are 5 different burrs attached to the handle which are interchangeable.

This dental drill from the mid-19th century has four interchangeable burs and one drill. These were released and fixed in position by a thumb screw.

Funeral card of Lord Lister permitting access for Professor Murdoch Cameron. The funeral took place on the 16th February at 1:30pm in Westminster Abbey.

The funeral of Joseph Lister, father of antiseptic surgery was held #OTD in 1912 at Westminster Abbey. This card was kept by Murdoch Cameron, a supporter of Lister's theories and a pioneer in caesarean section under antiseptic conditions.

Human skull in profile propped up on a book

John Hunter, Scottish surgeon and anatomist was born #OTD 1728. This amazing illustration is taken from Hunter's Natural History of the Human Teeth (c.1771).

X-ray tube with a large, round bulb with a long tube extended out of it. A label is tide to the end of the tube which reads "X-Ray Tube (Gas Type)

X-ray tube originally from the Radiology Department at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Glasgow was the first city in the world to have a radiology unit in a hospital. It was set up by physician, engineer and Fellow of our College, Dr John Macintyre in 1896.

Thanks for sharing :)

Illustration from William Smellie's book showing forceps being used to aid the delivery of a baby

Man-midwife and "Father of British Obstetrics" William Smellie was born #OnThisDay 1697 in Lesmahagow. Smellie, who was also a member of our College, developed his own forceps and was the first to provide safe guidance on using them heritageblog.rcpsg.ac.uk/2014/02/20/w...
#midwifery #obstetrics

The catches and springs could be locked into place. You can find out a bit more about Pare's prostheses here: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

An open book showing a woodcut illustration of a hedgehog

It's #NationalHedgehogDay 🦔 and we're just prickling with excitement 😁 so to celebrate here's a rather adorable #hedgehog from Historiae Animalium (c.1602) by Conrad Gesner.

An aisle of shelves filled with archive boxes. At the end are shelves filled with rare books

The upper balcony of an old library. Shelves filled with books floor to ceiling line the wall on the left

A reading room with floor to ceiling shelves filled with old medical journals including the Lancet and British Medical Journal

Happy #LibraryShelfieDay from our rare book store, lower library and reading room 📚

An open book showing a woodcut illustration of a human brain

Woodcut illustration from Cerebri Anatome (c.1664) by Thomas Willis, who was born #OnThisDay 1621. The term #neurology first appears in this book. He was also the first to describe the Circle of Willis, an important anatomical structure that provides blood to the brain. #OTD #histmed

Black and white photo showing an operation taking place. Three nurses, two surgeons and an anesthetist are operating. They are wearing white coats and rubber gloves

James Hogarth Pringle, surgeon at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and Vice President of our College, was born #OnThisDay 1863. He devised the Pringle Manoeuvre to limit blood loss in liver surgery. He's seen here (centre right with fabulous moustache) operating with William Macewen.
#histmed #OTD

Beautiful handwritten letter. The writing fills the full page and discusses very remedies to try for someone who is living with breast cancer. The letter is dated August 7th 1735

For #NationalHandwritingDay here's proof that doctors don't have terrible handwriting! This beautifully handwritten letter (c.1735) diagnoses a patient with breast cancer, a “disorder rarely hitherto known to yield to any milder remedy than the knife”.

Blank page in a printed book showing an ink drawing of a person with birds at their feet.

😍 Love this fab doodle found in "A right frutefull and approoved treatise, for the artificiall cure of... Struma" by William Clowes, 1602.
#doodle #rarebooks

Watercolour illustration showing a barred owl with wings outstretched walking along a branch towards a little squirrel. The squirrel seems quite pleased to see the owl. The owl is probably thinking it's lunch time.

Here's a happy little squirrel looking very pleased about it being #SquirrelAppreciationDay. The owl also appreciates squirrels... 😯

(Illustration from our copy of JJ Audubon's Birds of America c.1837)

Page in a book entitled "The penguins go north" with an illustration of four penguins walking in a line. At the front is the Rocky followed by the Chinstrap, Gentoo and King penguins.

It's #PenguinAwarenessDay! Love this description of the characteristics of penguins from The Path Through Penguin City (c.1955) by Dr Harry Lillie, conservationist and ship's surgeon.

"In the rear comes King with that disdainful rather superior air"

#PenguinDay 🐧

Remnants of spills on Renaissance-era textbook reveal recipes for 'curing' ailments with lizard heads and human feces A novel biochemical analysis of a Renaissance medical text has successfully recovered centuries-old proteins that might be from lizards and hippos.

Researchers are now using proteomics analysis on historical books, discovering all sorts of proteins people left on them centuries ago. 🏺🧪

A small block of wood. Etched into the wood is a detailed illustration of a human eye depicting a hole in the iris

19th century woodcut of coloboma of the iris (a hole in the structure of the iris). The woodcut was produced for a book on ophthalmology by William Mackenzie, founder of Glasgow Eye Infirmary. See a 3D model of the woodcut here: heritage.rcpsg.ac.uk/items/show/164

A black and white illustration of a pregnant woman sitting on a chair. Another woman is supporting her from behind, while a second woman is sitting in front of her, ready to help deliver the baby.

For centuries, a “gossip” was a woman who attended another woman's delivery. The word was a corruption of “god-sib” or “god-sibling,” meaning “sister in the Lord.” The gossips offered support to mother & midwife. Only later did it become derogatory.

More info: www.historyextra.com/period/gener...

A Bluesky challenge!

We've got so many great heritage/GLAM accounts here now, that some are flying under the radar

From national organisations to niche collections, these active accounts are all (at time of posting) under 500 followers-lowest at 9-how many can we get over 500?

go.bsky.app/U16Nwsw

Woodcut illustration in a book showing an artificial hand. The hand is raised as with the palm facing out from the page - the mechanical workings of the hand can be seen

Design for an artificial hand from Les œuvres d’Ambroise Paré, c.1585. Ambroise Pare was a pioneer of battlefield medicine and surgery and devised many prostheses. This hand had springs and catches which mimicked the movement of joints.
#histmed

A small metal case open to show surgical instruments held in place in the base and lid of the case.

Pocket case of surgical instruments belonging to Joseph Lister. The case contains scalpels, probes, and a curved bistoury. It dates from c.1865 when Lister was working at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. #Glasgow #heritage #histmed