RCSEd Library & Archive

Project Records Assistant We are seeking a proactive and detail-oriented Project Records Assistant to support a major records rationalisation project within our Heritage Depart

Project Records Assistant 'to support a major records rationalisation project within our Heritage Department'-
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh cezanneondemand.intervieweb.it/rcsed/jobs/p... #skystorians 🗃️#medicalhistory #archivists

📣JOB ALERT 📣 The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh has a vacancy for a Project Records Assistant, which will give experience of both Archives & Records Management. Closing date 5 pm on 22 Aug. Come join the Heritage team! cezanneondemand.intervieweb.it/rcsed/jobs/p...

📣JOB ALERT 📣 The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh has a vacancy for a Project Records Assistant, which will give experience of both Archives & Records Management. Closing date 5 pm on 22 Aug. Come join the Heritage team! cezanneondemand.intervieweb.it/rcsed/jobs/p...

Black and white photograph of Dr Nallamma seated in robes handling a register.

Front cover of Madras Medical College Clinical Manual.

Front page of Nammalla's Triple Qualification course schedule, a 4-page document outlining the candidate's biographical information, lectures and clinical classes taken, and lecturer and location of class.

Group photograph of doctors and Nurses of the McLeod Hospital.

For South Asian Heritage Month see our guest blog by Dr Theeba Krishnamoorty on the pioneering doctor and activist Dr Nallamma Williams, a prominent voice in Sri Lanka’s early suffrage movement rcsedlibraryandarchive.wordpress.com/2025/07/18/d... #SouthAsianHeritageMonth #RootsToRoutes

Black and white photograph of an operating theatre with a surgeon, assistant and team of nurses looking over a patient on the table. The men are wearing aprons and there is an empty lecture theatre behind them.

An operation in progress, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, late 19th century.

Professor Dorothy Ann Geddes Our Collections Coordinator, Danielle Dray, explores the remarkable life of Professor Dorothy Ann Geddes, who made history as the first woman to hold a professorship in dentistry in the United King…

Our Collections Coordinator, Danielle Dray, explores the remarkable life of Professor Dorothy Ann Geddes, who made history as the first woman to hold a professorship in dentistry in the United Kingdom.

surgeonshallmuseums.wordpress.com/2025/07/18/p...

A Glasgow tenement door and an oil painting of its former resident, Dr Jamini Sen, the first female fellow of our College

Today marks the start of South Asian Heritage Month. To celebrate we have a wonderful new blog post by Dr Theeba Krishnamoorty, discussing the very 1st South Asian women to qualify to practice medicine heritageblog.rcpsg.ac.uk/2025/07/18/a...

#SouthAsianHeritageMonth #RootsToRoutes #womeninmedicine

Thanks Alison, hope you're well.

Thanks!

#OTD 1505 the Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh united and were formally incorporated as a craft guild by the Town Council. Happy birthday to us, we’re 520 years old!

Dr Clare McNaught has been elected as the new President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
Dr McNaught will become the College's first ever female President in the College's 520-year history, and will succeed Professor Rowan Parks.

Read more: https://bit.ly/44kf55F

The latest episode of Beyond the Knife has dropped!

In this episode, Steven Kerr, the Librarian
@rcsedlibandarchive.bsky.social, discusses the extraordinary story behind one of histories most enduring medical texts -Gray's Anatomy.

You can find Beyond the Knife wherever you get your podcasts!

Yes, that's correct. It was meant tongue-in-cheek.

It's #InsectWeek and also the @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange theme is wildlife & the environment. Insects feed on paper so library & archive collections are stored under strict environmental controls. Here's some illustrations of wildlife, who may also have dined on their host!

A book resting on a cushion opened at a page showing illustration of an experiment on two ligated arms to show that blood in the veins flows towards the heart rather than away from it.

This is our 1st edition of William Harvey’s groundbreaking ‘Exercitatio Anatomica De Motu Cordis…’, published in 1628, which is often cited as the most important book in the history of medicine. Harvey was the first to recognize the full circulation of the blood in the human body #NationalBloodWeek

Page from a lecture notebook with handwriting and a colour labelled illustration identifying the muscles of the buttocks, thigh and lower leg.

Lecture notebook lying open at pages of handwriting and illustrations of the skull and bones of the shoulder to elbow.

Lecture notebook open at pages with handwriting and illustrations of the muscles of the leg and full body from behind. There is a snake weight holding the pages in place.

Lecture notebook open at a page with handwriting and illustrations of the forearm bones, and some skeletons fencing.

This art & anatomy lecture notebook belonged to Edinburgh surgeon Patrick Heron Watson, c.1856. The only @rcsed.bsky.social Fellow to have been President twice, some argue he inspired his pupil Arthur Conan Doyle's character 'Dr Watson'. Digitised here: archiveandlibrary.rcsed.ac.uk/special-coll...?

A pencil sketch of James Young Simpson lecturing.

Anaesthesia pioneer James Young Simpson was born #OTD 1811. We love this student's sketch of Simpson lecturing as Professor of Midwifery at Edinburgh University in the 1850s.

When you can't decide on a font so just use them all.

An open book showing an illustration of an otter eating a fish

It's #WorldOtterDay!
To celebrate here's a lovely woodcut illustration of a very hungry little otter found in Conrad Gesner's Historiae Animalium (c.1602)

Your Scottish Archives Explore and discover archive collections across Scotland

Have you taken a look at the Your Scottish Archives site yet?

This extensive resource allows you to search for archival material from collections across Scotland as well as providing guidance on finding and engaging with records.

Start exploring here: yourscottisharchives.com

Who needs AI for inspiration when you can marvel at things human beings made, and that librarians, archivists, curators, and photographer preserved, catalogued, and digitized at institutions like @rcsedlibandarchive.bsky.social?

💙📚 🗃 #histsci #histmed #archives #libraries

😅

My next book SLEUTH-HOUND will be about Joseph Bell, the Scottish doctor who inspired the creation of Sherlock Holmes, and the milieu of medicine, mystery, and crime that surrounded him.

I'm in the process of finishing the manuscript. It will be released in 2026!

Cassell's People's Physician open at a page with two paper manikin fold-outs illustrating a man and woman stripped to the waist, with text on the adjacent page.

After weeks of exceptional weather in Scotland sadly the sun's packing its bags, so if you're heading out to catch some last minute rays today don't forget to pop on your modesty loincloth! #FoldOutFriday

Hope he included us in the tour!

There used to be a guide in Edinburgh who did a superb Sherlock Holmes based tour. He went from the High St, to the University, George Sq, the Old Infirmary where Dr Bell practiced, then ending the tour at the statue. He wore full cape and deerstalker.

A photograph of Joseph Bell in deerstalker outfit on top of a photograph of Bell with a nurse and four letters from Arthur Conan Doyle, with two glass paperweights.

Apparently it's Sherlock Holmes day so of course we have to share the real Sherlock, Edinburgh surgeon and RCSEd President, Joseph Bell! Here he is with some letters from his former pupil, Arthur Conan Doyle that confirm Bell as inspiration for Doyle's literary detective.

Five copies of 'The Five' by Hallie Rubenhold sitting on a table with library shelves in the background.

Hi @hallierubenhold.bsky.social, thought you might like to know @rcsed.bsky.social is starting a staff Book Club and we've had a delivery in the College Library for the club's summer reading! 📚

Black and white photo of a group of women. Arranged in three rows the front row sits on the ground, the second on chairs and the third standing. They are all wearing long overcoats and hats. Chimneys can be seen in the background.

Today is #InternationalNursesDay
Taken 28th October 1915 in Liverpool this photo shows the amazing women from the Girton & Newnham Unit of the Scottish Women's Hospitals. They set sail for Serbia 2 days later to set up their hospital unit in Salonika #WW1 #histnursing #nurses #IND2025

Black and white lantern slide showing the back of two nurses walking towards the end a trench and a partial view of another nurse above.

Nurses have always played an important humanitarian role in response to crisis and war. This lantern slide from our collection is particularly poignant and shows nurses walking through a #WW1 trench. #InternationalNursesDay #HistNursing