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MANCHESTER MEDICAL LIBRARY
946
MANCHESTER MEDICAL LIBRARY of increased accommodation for the of books and of improved facilities for their easy use is a problem almost as pressing to medical schools as is that of more laboratory and lecture accommodation. Manchester University is room recognising this in its present appeal for money and in its plans for the future. Its medical library to which, in addition to its own staff and students, the members of the Manchester Medical Society have access, and which is to a considerable degree supported by the latter, is housed in the university medical
THE
question
storage
also a presentation copy of Beaumont’s work on Alexis St. Martin, and two copies of Parkinson’s " Shaking Palsy," both rare works. Apart from books there is John Hunter’s grandfather clock, his dinner bell, and tho seal of his diploma as Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, all of which were acquired from the family of Sir Richard Owen, to whom they came through his marriage with the daughter of William Cliff who assisted Hunter. In part owing to want of space in the main library rooms, and in part for convenience, a system of
departmental libraries-physiology, anatomy, pharmacology, gynecology, cancer, public health, and dentistry-has been inaugurated; these hold all the books on their own subjects and facilitate study though they create difficulties of control. Another special section is given up to local medical historyof Manchester in particular, but also of Lancashire and Cheshire in general-which contains some 1100
But the present accommodation is by no all that could be desired ; Harvey Cushing, himself an eminent authority on medical books, has described the library as one of the best he had seen but as one of the worst housed. The acids of the Manchester atmosphere, some of them perhaps from volumes and 230 boxes of unbound material. the university’s own chemical laboratories, assisted by the fumes of the gas with which the rooms were for many years lighted, have played havoc with the PARIS bindings. Space too is deficient, both for qualified OWN OUR readers and for the students who are using the library (FROM CORRESPONDENT) in increasing numbers and who would use it still more if elbow-room and comfort were improved. THE HAWKING OF DRUGS The fact that the students’ reading room acts as LAST year a new law regulating the sale of drugs a passage for access to the general room and comThis law was the inevitcame into force in France. mittee room tells its own tale. A lecture theatre able reaction to the self-prescribed pharmacological is also urgently required. The library, which claims to be the largest medical orgies in which the country has indulged with everzest. The law strikes at the sale of drugs library in England outside London, contains some growing outside the chemist’s shop which, if the chemist 75,000 bound volumes as well as many thousands is on duty, is supposed to serve, if not as himself of pamphlets which are only now in process of being sorted and catalogued. One of the avowed objects an absolutely fool-proof safety valve, at least as a check on the public’s ardently misguided search for of the Manchester Medical Society when it was founded in a bottle. The new law also attempts to health in 1834 was to establish a medical library and reada spoke into the wheel of the circularising ing room." For many years its progress, at first in put herborist " who, through the post and persuasive a private house in Faulkner-street, then in the Royal offers Nature’s cures without discrimination. touts, now the City Art Gallery) Institution (which is In 1875 an arrangement was arrived A recent number of the Seecle Médical reports an was slow. at by which Owens College housed the books in its important judgment of the tribunal correctionnel of town a certain doctor of pharmacy newly built medical school at the back of the Oxford- wasNancy. In this for the sale of drugs under conditions prosecuted road buildings, and provided the medical society of Sept. 4th, 1936. On the first the law infringing The a to with headquarters. college gave grant occasion he was acquitted by the tribunal which help in maintenance and as this grant was augmented found that he had acted in good faith. Regarding this it obtained increasing rights for its staff and students. as an incentive he employed nine motor judgment As the library grew the society found it more and lorries on regular circuits of neighbouring villages, more difficult to maintain its standard of efficiency, collecting orders and distributing goods already until in 1930 it was handed over to the university, the members of the society retaining their right ordered. These lorries were in effect chemists’ shops on wheels without a duly qualified chemist to to the use of the books and accommodation. As the gift implied that the society could not now put on the brake. The leniency shown by the break away taking the books with it, it became worth tribunal on the first occasion was not repeated, while for the university to develop the library and and the chemist was fined 300 francs and ordered to pay 10,000 francs damages to the Syndicat des to spend money in housing it properly. The de Lorraine. The judgment in this university has allotted a site for it conveniently close pharmaciens test case should prove an obstacle to the sale and to the medical school. of pharmacological preparations at the The library, as it stands, is largely the result of the delivery customer’s door as though they were the daily work of Dr. Thomas Windsor (1831-1910), a bibliophile necessities of life. of bibliophiles. Valuable collections have been given, THE FUTURE OF NURSING IN THE AIR one by Dr. Samuel Crompton, another by Dr. Charles Dr. P. Behague, who is "vice-pr6sident delegue" Clay of ovariotomy fame, others by the Royal Infirmary and the Manchester St. Mary’s Hospitals. of the Comite Central d’Aviation Sanitaire, and who Many rare books are to be found on the " shelves. has done much to organise a network of first.aid Among the incunabula are an Italian copy of Guy de posts on the French main roads, is not a little con. Chauliac" (1480). Other early books are a " Herbal or cerned about the future of nursing in the air. During Boke of the Properties of Herbes " (1548), of which no the past two years more than 200 French nurses have other example is known, and a copy of Wolveridge’s passed all the tests required of them for air ambulance " Speculum Matricis or The Expert Midwives Hand- service, and now they find there is little scope for maid " (1671) which is very rare. The library possesses their activities in this sphere. From a national
school. means
"
"
MANCHESTER MEDICAL LIBRARY of increased accommodation for the of books and of improved facilities for their easy use is a problem almost as pressing to medical schools as is that of more laboratory and lecture accommodation. Manchester University is room recognising this in its present appeal for money and in its plans for the future. Its medical library to which, in addition to its own staff and students, the members of the Manchester Medical Society have access, and which is to a considerable degree supported by the latter, is housed in the university medical
THE
question
storage
also a presentation copy of Beaumont’s work on Alexis St. Martin, and two copies of Parkinson’s " Shaking Palsy," both rare works. Apart from books there is John Hunter’s grandfather clock, his dinner bell, and tho seal of his diploma as Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, all of which were acquired from the family of Sir Richard Owen, to whom they came through his marriage with the daughter of William Cliff who assisted Hunter. In part owing to want of space in the main library rooms, and in part for convenience, a system of
departmental libraries-physiology, anatomy, pharmacology, gynecology, cancer, public health, and dentistry-has been inaugurated; these hold all the books on their own subjects and facilitate study though they create difficulties of control. Another special section is given up to local medical historyof Manchester in particular, but also of Lancashire and Cheshire in general-which contains some 1100
But the present accommodation is by no all that could be desired ; Harvey Cushing, himself an eminent authority on medical books, has described the library as one of the best he had seen but as one of the worst housed. The acids of the Manchester atmosphere, some of them perhaps from volumes and 230 boxes of unbound material. the university’s own chemical laboratories, assisted by the fumes of the gas with which the rooms were for many years lighted, have played havoc with the PARIS bindings. Space too is deficient, both for qualified OWN OUR readers and for the students who are using the library (FROM CORRESPONDENT) in increasing numbers and who would use it still more if elbow-room and comfort were improved. THE HAWKING OF DRUGS The fact that the students’ reading room acts as LAST year a new law regulating the sale of drugs a passage for access to the general room and comThis law was the inevitcame into force in France. mittee room tells its own tale. A lecture theatre able reaction to the self-prescribed pharmacological is also urgently required. The library, which claims to be the largest medical orgies in which the country has indulged with everzest. The law strikes at the sale of drugs library in England outside London, contains some growing outside the chemist’s shop which, if the chemist 75,000 bound volumes as well as many thousands is on duty, is supposed to serve, if not as himself of pamphlets which are only now in process of being sorted and catalogued. One of the avowed objects an absolutely fool-proof safety valve, at least as a check on the public’s ardently misguided search for of the Manchester Medical Society when it was founded in a bottle. The new law also attempts to health in 1834 was to establish a medical library and reada spoke into the wheel of the circularising ing room." For many years its progress, at first in put herborist " who, through the post and persuasive a private house in Faulkner-street, then in the Royal offers Nature’s cures without discrimination. touts, now the City Art Gallery) Institution (which is In 1875 an arrangement was arrived A recent number of the Seecle Médical reports an was slow. at by which Owens College housed the books in its important judgment of the tribunal correctionnel of town a certain doctor of pharmacy newly built medical school at the back of the Oxford- wasNancy. In this for the sale of drugs under conditions prosecuted road buildings, and provided the medical society of Sept. 4th, 1936. On the first the law infringing The a to with headquarters. college gave grant occasion he was acquitted by the tribunal which help in maintenance and as this grant was augmented found that he had acted in good faith. Regarding this it obtained increasing rights for its staff and students. as an incentive he employed nine motor judgment As the library grew the society found it more and lorries on regular circuits of neighbouring villages, more difficult to maintain its standard of efficiency, collecting orders and distributing goods already until in 1930 it was handed over to the university, the members of the society retaining their right ordered. These lorries were in effect chemists’ shops on wheels without a duly qualified chemist to to the use of the books and accommodation. As the gift implied that the society could not now put on the brake. The leniency shown by the break away taking the books with it, it became worth tribunal on the first occasion was not repeated, while for the university to develop the library and and the chemist was fined 300 francs and ordered to pay 10,000 francs damages to the Syndicat des to spend money in housing it properly. The de Lorraine. The judgment in this university has allotted a site for it conveniently close pharmaciens test case should prove an obstacle to the sale and to the medical school. of pharmacological preparations at the The library, as it stands, is largely the result of the delivery customer’s door as though they were the daily work of Dr. Thomas Windsor (1831-1910), a bibliophile necessities of life. of bibliophiles. Valuable collections have been given, THE FUTURE OF NURSING IN THE AIR one by Dr. Samuel Crompton, another by Dr. Charles Dr. P. Behague, who is "vice-pr6sident delegue" Clay of ovariotomy fame, others by the Royal Infirmary and the Manchester St. Mary’s Hospitals. of the Comite Central d’Aviation Sanitaire, and who Many rare books are to be found on the " shelves. has done much to organise a network of first.aid Among the incunabula are an Italian copy of Guy de posts on the French main roads, is not a little con. Chauliac" (1480). Other early books are a " Herbal or cerned about the future of nursing in the air. During Boke of the Properties of Herbes " (1548), of which no the past two years more than 200 French nurses have other example is known, and a copy of Wolveridge’s passed all the tests required of them for air ambulance " Speculum Matricis or The Expert Midwives Hand- service, and now they find there is little scope for maid " (1671) which is very rare. The library possesses their activities in this sphere. From a national
school. means
"
"