Royal Society of Medicine

The Medical and Chirurgical Society of London was founded on 22nd May 1805 with the aim of bringing together physicians and surgeons in order to further scientific, professional and social communication. This body eventually became the Royal Society of Medicine.

Between 1907 and 1909 seventeen specialist societies joined who brought with them their varied collections including administrative archives, rare books, art, silverware and medical equipment. Today the Royal Society of Medicine has 60 Sections ranging from Cardiology to the History of Medicine and to Psychiatry.

Integral to the functioning of the Society was the formation of a library which is now one of the largest postgraduate biomedical collections in Europe, totalling 600,000 volumes, including around 45,000 rare books and manuscripts. Highlights of the collection include the Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus by William Harvey published in 1628.

Visit http://www.rsm.ac.uk/librar/index.php for more information on library services and events.

Contact Us

The Royal Society of Medicine
1 Wimpole Street
London
W1G 0AE
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7290 2940 / 2941
Email: library@rsm.ac.uk
Web: http://www.rsm.ac.uk

Access to archival and library material requires a temporary membership. Two proofs of identification will need to be shown.

Temporary Library Membership rates:
Half day (after 1pm or on Saturdays) £6
Daily £10
Weekly £20
Monthly £35

Visitor Information

Opening Hours
Monday-Thursday: 9:00 - 19:00
Friday : 9:00 - 17:30
Saturday 10:00 - 16:30

The Library will be closed on Bank Holiday weekends, though the Study Centre may be available. Please contact the Library to confirm opening hours.

Tours of the RSM and library exhibitions are open to the public and are free.

Accessibility: Wheelchair is available at reception. All floors of the library are accessible via a lift/ramp. One public disabled parking space.

Bond Street, Oxford Circus

6, 7, 10, 13, 15, 23, 25, 30, 55, 73, 94, 98, 113, 137, 139, 159, 175, 189, 274, 390

Tell Us About Your Visit

Current Exhibition

Exhibition of woodcut illustrated books
9 January 2012-24 February 2012

New Kreuterbuch Johannes Ketham’s 'Fasciculus Medicinæ', first published in Venice in 1491, represents a double first in the history of publishing. It contains the first printed anatomic illustrations of any kind, and it was the first medical book to be illustrated by woodcuts.

Charles Estienne’s 'De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres', published in Paris in 1545, was delayed in publication by a dispute between the author and Étienne de la Rivière, the surgeon, anatomist, and artist who had assisted at dissections and supplied some of the illustrations for the book. Had they patched up their differences earlier, this book would have predated Vesalius’s famous De Fabrica published in 1543. Many of the plates in Estienne’s book are dated between 1530 and 1532, and most of the work was completed by 1539 with woodcuts by Jean "Mercure" Jollat.

Leonhart Fuchs’s 'New Kreüterbuch' from 1543 contains detailed plant-portraits drawn from life in Fuchs's garden at Tübingen by Albert Meyer, before being transferred to woodblocks by Heinrich Füllmaurer, and cut into wood by Viet Rudolph Speckle. Portraits of all three artists are included in the work, as well as descriptions and illustrations of over 400 German plants and 100 foreign plants.

These and several other works will be on show as part of an exhibition of woodcut illustrated books from the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine from 9th January 2012 – 24th February 2012.

The exhibition will be on the second-floor of the RSM Library and will be open to the public. Admission is free of charge.

Opening hours:
Monday–Thursday: 9.00 – 19.00
Friday: 9.00 – 17.30
Saturday: 10.00 – 16.30