Historical Collections and Archives: Rare Books

The National Library of Medicine has produced an app that allows users to virtually turn the pages of rare medical books and manuscripts from the Library's collections. The app provides access to the rare and significant books and manuscripts with historian and curator annotations. The “Turning the Pages” app is only available from the Apple Store for iOS devices and is compatible with iPad. For more information, click here.

In 1834, Dr. Louis Alexander Dugas, one of the founding faculty members of the Medical College of Georgia, was sent to Europe by his colleagues to purchase books for the school's library, anatomical models, and apparatus for the chemical laboratory. Once he returned and set up the library in what is now called the Old MCG Building on Telfair Street, Dugas acted as the librarian by cataloging the books and overseeing their care and obtaining various medical journal publications. Over the years he made a few more trips to Europe to purchase more books. 

In the early 20th century, due to the lack of space and that the books were considered antiquated, they were boxed up and stored in the basement of the Newton Building when MCG moved its campus from Telfair Street to the present location. In 1954, Sadie Rainsford, the librarian, discovered the boxes of rare books. She still did not have space to properly display the books until 1963 when the library moved out of the Kelly Administration Building into the first free-standing built specifically as the library. Since 1834, the MCG library was housed in a building that also housed classrooms, laboratories, and administration offices. In the new 1963 library building, Rainsford made sure that there was a rare book room. Today that room on the first floor is the Greenblatt Conference Room. The Faculty Author Collection and the HCA copies of the student theses and dissertations are housed in the room. 

In 1980 the library was expanded and the rare books were moved to their present location on the second floor. The majority of these books were from the original 19th century MCG library that Dugas established. The collection is strongest in British and American medical literature and includes the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal published by the Medical College of Georgia faculty from 1836 to 1867. The collection also has about 600 foreign medical books, mostly in French, from the 19th century, as well as books published up to 1950 that focus on the health sciences, including nursing, dentistry, and medicine.

The rare books include the Landmark Collection which is comprised of classics from the late 19th century and the early 20th century that were significant in the development of modern medicine. As mentioned, there is also a Faculty Author Collection of books written or edited by Augusta University Health Sciences Campus faculty and its legacy institution, and an archival print copy of students' theses and dissertations.