BERKSHIRE
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The Royal Berkshire Hospital has a very beautiful library which provides interest for the history of medicine. Situated in the west wing of the hospital, it dates from 1882 (left) and belongs to the Reading Pathological Society, founded in 1841 and the oldest society of its kind in the UK. There are about 10,000 volumes, many of which have considerable antiquarian medical interest. The library also contains the society's minute books and specialised collections of literature, the Hamilton Fairley collection on tropical medicine (200 volumes), the Keith Lyle ophthalmology collection (100 volumes) and the Bryn Thomas collection on the history of anaesthesia (400 volumes) as well as other material of historic interest. The library can only be viewed by special arrangement with the Honorary Consulting Librarian to whom requests to visit should be addressed. | |||
| The old children's ward (King Edward) is decorated with tiled pictures of nursery rhymes | ||||
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The Berkshire Medical Heritage
Centre was founded in 1997 and aims to preserve and display items of
historical medical interest particularly those with a local connection. There
is a museum in the Old Laundry in the Royal Berkshire Hospital displaying
artefacts and photographs relating to medicine, nursing, pharmacy and
dentistry and a large number of glass eyes. The Heritage Centre has custody of the hospital's archives the
earliest records of which date from 1837.
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The museum is open to the public and opening times and further details are available on the Berkshire Medical Heritage Centre's web site. | ||
| Reading University Library has an extensive collection of books on medicine, zoology, comparative anatomy and reproductive physiology, from earliest times to the present day. There are an estimated 1700 or more pre-1851 works which are housed in the Cole library. | ||||