To celebrate the 200th anniversary of classes beginning at the UVA School of Medicine, UVA Health’s Claude Moore Health Sciences Library recently debuted an exhibit featuring medical books once believed to have been lost in the 1895 Rotunda fire.
Building on research from UVA alumni and other UVA librarians, archivist Amanda Greenwood found books in the Health Sciences Library’s vault with markings that indicate they were housed in the Rotunda library before 1895. These markings include various library stamps, red-stained edges and a spine label. The books include a syllabus of lectures on medical jurisprudence along with books on anatomical works, physiology, bones and general medicine.
Co-curated by Greenwood and Meggan Cashwell, PhD, curator of HSL’s Historical Collections, the exhibit features these rare books, student notebooks from the 1800s, textbooks from the early medical curriculum, bricks from the Anatomical Theatre once housed on Grounds and reproductions of historical photographs.
Read UVA Today’s story, “They thought the books had burned in 1895, but they were hiding in plain sight,” to learn more about this fascinating piece of history about medical education at the UVA School of Medicine.
Meggan Cashwell, left, and Amanda Greenwood, right, discuss a book believed to have survived the Rotunda fire. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)
Filed Under: Education