Blogs

A husband and wife printing team, a world-travelling botanist, and a visual guessing game…Explore the print ‘The Simpling Macaroni’

The portrait of Dame Margaret Turner-Warwick returns to display in the Censors’ Room after grant-funded conservation.

As part of the Institute of Historical Research History Day 2022, we're taking a look at materials from the RCP archives and museum relating to Edward Jenner (1749-–1823) and the spread of vaccination.

On 4 November 2022 we are joining with the Early Modern Recipes Online Collective (EMROC) and the Wellcome Collection for a Transcribathon where participants form all over the world can take part in transcribing texts from our archives and enjoy talks and activities about early modern recipes throughout the day. Manuscript MS502, ‘A collection of medical receipts and prescriptions’, from our archives has been chosen as our text for transcription. To accompany the Transcribathon, archive manager, Pamela Forde, is producing a series of blogs focussing on each of the elements which make up a successful recipe.

To accompany the Transcribathon, archive manager, Pamela Forde, is producing a series of blogs focussing on each of the elements which make up a successful recipe.

Do you know how to properly apply a spiders web to a wound? Or how to  create your own pills?
Archive Manager Pamela Forde explores just how much knowledge and skill you would  have needed to work out a 17th century medical recipe in her latest blog

Archives Volunteer, Jessica Reeves explores the miraculous medical use of honey as a cure all ingredient in early modern recipes.

Honey: The Elixir of Life Made Flesh 

The Archive, Heritage Library and Museum Services (AMS) team reflect on the racism, colonialism and other exploitative histories present in the collections, and how we are beginning to address these legacies.

This post contains potentially distressing discussion of enslavement and historic medical experimentation.

During summer 2022, the RCP archives team were delighted to welcome Traci Picard, Public Humanities masters student at Brown University, Rhode Island. Traci has begun creating a super-index of our 40-or-so handwritten medical recipe books, which will enable researchers to search across the whole collection for particular ailments, remedies, and ingredients.  The super-index will go online in 2023, and we are currently uploading the books themselves to the Internet Archive

Enjoy the first in a series of blogs focussing on each of the elements which make up a successful recipe.