A Vision of History: the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine

The first sight to greet visitors to the exhibition gallery of the Wellcome Institute is a triptych: in the middle is the portrait of the founder, Sir Henry Wellcome, and on either side, panels showing pictures of the Institute and Library yesterday and today What was it like then? What is it like now? How has the Institute changed and developed up to the present day? How has it succeeded in realizing the historical interests of its founder? What was done in the past, and what sort of activities are going on now, in order to make Wellcome's vision of history accessible to the world? What has the Wellcome Institute to offer the public today? This exhibition answers all these questions. Like a huge family album, it tells the story of the Wellcome Library and its collections, and reveals the present life and work of the Institute in pictures and photographs. The first, exciting chapter of the story is the formation of the unique Wellcome collections from 1897 to 1936, which coincided with the last golden age of collecting activity, when bulk acquisitions ofmanuscripts, rare books, and other objects were still possible. The second chapter shows how the Museum and Library struggled for years to gain adequate space for their materials. The present solution, however, separates them according to their different characters and functions. The Museum is now located at the Science Museum in South Kensington, where it occupies two large galleries and attracts many visitors. The Library remains in the Wellcome Building on the Euston Road, and its collections form the base for the wide variety of research being carried out within the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. This exhibition concentrates on the resources and research work of the Institute. It documents, by various means, the efforts that have been made, under the magnanimous stewardship of the Wellcome Trust, towards making a modern academic centre for the history of medicine. A rich selection of resources-manuscripts, archives, and rare books, as well as materials from the Oriental, American, and Iconographic Collections-is on display in generous proportion. Although these represent only a small fragment of the Institute's whole collection, visitors can gain an impression of its incredible richness, and can be highly delighted at the sight of some unique and unusual items. The exhibition also shows how the Library makes these resources available to scholars and readers, most obviously …