RCSI Heritage Collections

Within the last couple of days an amazing discovery has taken place in the University of Birmingham. Two pages of parchment from the Qur'an which date to the time of the Prophet Muhammad (c.570-632) have been discovered mistakenly bound with a manuscript from the 7th century. The discovery of this Arabic manuscript brought to mind the hugely significant medical tome written in the Islamic Golden Age  (c780-1260) by Avicenna , one of the most important thinkers and writers of that time. Avicenna was born in the Bukhara region modern day Uzbekistan in 980 AD and died at the age of only 57 in Hamadan, Iran. It was under the patronage of  Harun al-Rashid , the fifth Abbasid Caliph, that the Islamic Golden Age came about. He encouraged growth, study and discoveries in the sciences, culture, religion, Islamic art and music. He also established the legendary ' House of Wisdom ' or 'Bayt al-Hikma' library in Baghdad. Title page of The Canon of Medicine or   Al-Qanu...

The 1555 copy of Andreas Vesalius’  De Humani Corporis Fabrica   is perhaps the most important book held by RCSI Library.  Just over one hundred copies of this work are known to exist worldwide and RCSI holds the only known copy in Ireland. It is considered a masterpiece in the fields of both anatomy and art. It is 500 years since the birth of Andreas Vesalius one of the greatest anatomists and dissectors of the medical world. BBC4 recently ran a series on TV called The Beauty of Anatomy   which features a different anatomist for each of its 5 episodes. One of these anatomists was none other than the great Vesalius.   Engraving by Tintoretto of Vesalius c1540  Vesalius was born in Brussels on 31 December 1514. He started his medical studies in the University of Paris in 1533 where he learned the art of dissection. In 1538 he had moved to the University of Padua where he received his M.D. and was appointed a lecturer in anatomy. It was here that...