The Index of Medieval Medical Images

The UCLA Digital Library Program offers a number of interesting collections in various media formats. The Index of Medieval Medical Images was quite compelling. The project was initiated in 1988 with the intent of describing and indexing “the content of all medieval manuscript images (up to the year 1500) with medical components held in North American collection… [and] to make a substantial sample of the images and descriptions available via a searchable database on the Web.”

This site is very heavy on searching capabilities. For instance the browse function has five separate search categories including: subject, image type, image date, image origin and manuscript. Advance search has four fields that can be both limited by user selected date ranges and can also be sorted by title, date, or origin. Wow!

Also of interest was the “My Virtual Collection” function. Unfortunately, creating one was restricted to users with a UCLA library account, but this function allows for the creation and manipulation of your own collection of images from the index. Some categories that have been created range from the pertinent to the sublime: “pain management,” “surgical tools,” “wild animals”, and “sleep disorders." They can be manipulated by any logged-in members, wiki-style.


The full listing of all projects in the UCLA Digital Library Program can be found here