New issue of 'Medical History'

The latest issue of journal Medical History - available free through PubMedCentral and UK PubMedCentral - carries two articles which offer interesting perspectives upon major collections held in the Wellcome Library.

Ian Burney and Neil Pemberton's article 'Bruised Witness: Bernard Spilsbury and the Performance of Early Twentieth-Century English Forensic Pathology' examines one of the many cases in which Spilsbury - the so-called 'Father of Modern Forensics', whose case notes we acquired in 2008 - acted as a key witness.

Claudia Stein and Roger Cooter's 'Visual Objects and Universal Meanings: AIDS Posters and the Politics of Globalisation and History', focuses particularly on such posters as collected material objects, and so has direct relevance to the collection of AIDS Posters in the Wellcome Library.

Image credit: Medical History website

The One Show

Items from the Wellcome Library's collections featured on last night's edition of BBC1's early-evening magazine programme The One Show.

Reporter Gyles Brandreth told the story of Sir Bernard Spilsbury, pathologist and so-called 'Father of Forensics'. As discussed in previous Wellcome Library Blog posts, we hold nearly 7,000 cards detailing autopsies carried out by Spilsbury.

The show not only included a film - partly shot in the Wellcome Library - in which Gyles discussed Spilsbury's achievements and but also featured Gyles showing presenters Matt Baker and Christine Bleakley some examples of the Spilsbury cards we hold.

This edition of The One Show is available for the next seven days for readers in the UK, through the BBC's iPlayer.