Celebrating AANHPI Heritage Month: Join Us in Exploring Medical History

May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and the Medical History Center in Lane Library has resources to explore this rich history.

Resources include:

An online exhibit features one of the earliest Asian graduates of Cooper Medical College (the school that later became Stanford Medicine). Dr. Iga Mori (毛利伊賀) received his MD in 1891.

The Medical History Center’s extensive rare book collection includes volumes that testify to the ways that medical practice has followed immigration, globalization, and colonization in sometimes complicated ways. One example is the 1769 publication Geka kunmō zui (外科訓蒙圖彙), which includes a translation from Dutch into Japanese of the writings of French surgeon Ambroise Paré’s. Displayed here are two digital photos of this eighteenth-century book.

Finally, the Medical History Center is a place where you can learn about online tools, such as the National Library of Medicine’s “Images from the History of Medicine” database, which includes over 1,000 digitized items they’ve cataloged as being related to Asian Americans.

To learn more about the resources and services of the Medical History Center, please contact Dr. Drew Bourn.