The make-up of Simms Collection

Surgeons and their wonderful discoveries (1900), Front cover

The handy book of anatomical plates (1873), Plate LXXIV. Vascular System, Plate VIII (veins)

An American text-book of obstetrics (1895), Vol. 1, p. 169 (Diagnosis of Pregnancy)

The handy book of anatomical plates (1873), Plate LIX. Vascular System, Plate II (lingual artery)

Des maladies mentales considérées sous les rapports médicale, hygiénique et médico-légal (1838), Atlas, Plate V (Démonomaniaque)

Once described as one of the most selective and extensive of collections in private hands, the enchanting Simms medical collection comprises approximately 3,600 volumes of material, published in English, French and Latin. The preponderance of material relates to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – including first and early editions – but there are texts as early as the seventeenth century. The collection includes texts, monographs and some serials, in addition to works on the history of medicine and medical biography. Many of the titles included in the collection can be found listed in Morton & Moore's, A Bibliography of Medical and Biomedical Bibliography (1983).

Simms collection attests to the proliferation of medical texts in Irish print during the nineteenth century and affirms Lake’s contention that medical publications were written by medics for fellow members of the medical profession, and not for the general public (p. 579). She records that over:

“700 medical texts were produced by Irish medical practitioners living and working in Ireland in the nineteenth century. In addition to purely medical texts, medical practitioners wrote prolifically on the medical profession itself and, particularly, in the early part of the century at least, on the need for reform. They also wrote reports on public health administration, medical biography, medical history, as well as reports on the various hospitals and medical institutions that continue to be founded” (Lake, p. 579).

The Simms collection adheres to many of these characteristics of nineteenth century medical publishing. It is all the more fascinating, however, because its material spans three centuries and therefore charts the changing face of medicine as a profession, science as a discipline and the inexorable connection between medical practitioners and advances in scientific discovery.