BERKSHIRE
The Royal Berkshire Hospital has two
libraries which provide interest for the history of medicine. One 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 The other library is in the Postgraduate Medical Centre and houses three 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.