Skip to Main Content

History databases wishlist & trials: History of Science & Medicine wishlist

Suggest other resources

If a database or ejournal is not yet on the History wishlist, you can recommend an electronic resource.

How to evaluate a database

Is the content:

  • scholarly
  • authoritative & peer-reviewed
  • accurate
  • up-to-date
  • complete
  • supported by editorials, documentation, guides.

Is there good functionality for

  • ease of use
  • searching & browsing
  • viewing, zooming, resizing
  • saving, emailing, printing
  • alerts
  • clear display & navigation

Tips:

  • Read editorial, helpfiles and FAQs
  • Test the same search using different methods

Is it relevant for other disciplines?

Trial until 12 October 2023: Records of Bethlem Royal Hospital 1559-1932

This resource is useful for the study of mental health care throughout the ages.

Bethlem Royal Hospital is a psychiatric facility in London. It was established as a priory of the Order of St Mary of Bethlehem in 1247, before beginning to care for mentally ill patients sometime in the 14th century. Often referred to colloquially as ‘Bedlam’—and generally accepted to be the origin of the very same noun—past incarnations of the institution were infamous for their questionable diagnosis of mental illness and poor treatment of patients.

This collection contains four centuries' and 130,000 images' worth of records from Bethlem. The records are diverse in both form and subject matter. They include: voluntary and criminal admission registers; discharge and death registers; male and female patient casebooks; minutes of the Court of Governors; and staff salary books. All handwritten items have been fully transcribed.

Scholars and students alike will find that, together, the records provide a unique insight into the evolution of so-called lunacy laws—from an early reliance on control of the mentally ill through coercion and restraint to the later emergence of doctrines of self-discipline and moral management.

Please email feedback to Isabel Holowaty.

Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and Mathematical Sciences

A comprehensive encyclopedia of science which blends essential historical data together with scientific principles and spans ancient to modern times. Includes 2070 boiographies of famous thinkers and scientists.Includes 380 articles summarizing the time-line of ideas in science, technology, mathematics and philosophy and includes 20 ‘Science Progress Reports’ detailing historic scientific setbacks.

This extensive work combines the essentials of history – biography, chronology, political and economic background – with the observations, theories, principles, laws and equations that constitute the specifics of science.

Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures

A reference work with 1000 entries dealing in depth with the history of the scientific, technological and medical accomplishments of cultures outside of the United States and Europe.

The entries consist of fully updated articles together with hundreds of entirely new topics adorned with full color pictures. This reference work includes intercultural articles on broad topics such as mathematics and astronomy as well as thoughtful philosophical articles on concepts and ideas related to the study of non-Western Science, such as rationality, objectivity, and method.

There is material on religion and science, East and West, and magic and science.This resource alsocontains entries on fascinating esoteric topics such as Native American mathematics, Polynesian navigation, and African Metallurgy. There are also biographical articles for those cultures where individual scientists are known to us, such as China and the Islamic world.

Conrad Gessner's Private Library (Brill Primary Sources Online) [Brill]

The present collection presents the entire corpus of all public interventions by representatives in the National Convention during the trial from November 1792 to January 1793. A six-volume compilation of speeches and interventions during the trial constitutes the nucleus of the collection. It contains some 300 original writings which originally appeared separately.

Two other important items in the collection are contemporary source collections, published during and immediately after Louis's trial: the eight volumes of the Histoire impartiale du procès de Louis XVI by Jean-François Jauffret (Paris: C.-F. Perlet, 1792-1793), and the very rare seven volumes of Le Pour et le Contre. Recueil complet des opinions prononcées à l'Assemblée conventionelle dans le procès de Louis XVI (Paris: Buisson, Chaudé, 1793). Two important speeches in the king's defense, by Jacques Necker (1792) and Lally-Tolendal (Paris-London, 1793), make for a remarkable and representative compilation of contemporary documents on the king's trial.

Trialled in July 2012.