Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow

IMAGE: Amputation Set

The heritage collections of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow span over 6 centuries and include thousands of medical and surgical instruments, rare books, archives, and photographs. They are an excellent resource for exploring the history of medicine and the history of the city of Glasgow.

Alongside the records of the College you’ll find items relating to local hospitals and medical societies as well as objects and documents from some of the greatest minds in medicine including Joseph Lister, William Macewen and Ronald Ross.

For the Being Human project we looked at items in our collection that related to perceptions and attitudes towards disability and how over the centuries, doctors and surgeons tried to treat these conditions. Items discussed included:

Amputation Set
Levis’ Metallic Elbow Splint
De Monstrorum

Working with the students and lecturers at GSA on this project is always really rewarding as it gives us the opportunity to look at our collections in a very different way and helps to demonstrate how the archive, museum and library can be relevant to so many different disciplines outside of the medical world.

Links:

Website

View All Work