Gain insights from the curators in the History of Medicine division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) as you virtually turn the pages of rare medical books and manuscripts from the Library's collections. Library patrons typically cannot access these rare materials since everyday use will surely harm these precious objects of antiquity: the evidence of humanity's search for knowledge. Computational scientists at the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, an intramural R&D division of NLM, have developed this app that provides access to the rare and significant books and manuscripts with historian and curator annotations, where available.

Download these items from within the app:

1. Hanaoka Seishu’s "Surgical Casebook" 8. Ambroise Paré’s "Oeuvres"
2. Hieronymus Brunschwig’s "Liber de Arte Distilland" 9. Andreas Vesalius' "De Humani Corporis Fabrica"
3. al-Qazwini's "Wonders of Creation" 10. Johannes de Ketham's "Fasiculo de Medicina".
4. Robert Hooke's "Micrographia" 11. Edwin Smith's Surgical Papyrus
5. Conrad Gesner's "Historae Animalium" 12. Mongolian Book of Astrology
6. Andrew Snape's "Anatomy of a Horse" 13. The Marshall Nirenberg Charts
7. Elizabeth Blackwell’s "A Curious Herbal"