Hours
The JMRBR is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and by appointment on Friday.
Please contact Damien Ihrig at damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu for more information.
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News
- Nine featured books from the John Martin Rare Book Room
Explore nine of the latest additions to the John Martin Rare Book Room (JMRBR) collection.
- Interactive exhibition features rare movable books and paper technology
The Main Library Gallery at the University of Iowa Libraries (UI Libraries) welcomes visitors to experience a stunning exhibition of rare movable books and paper objects this fall. Free and open to the public, Paper Engineering in Art, […]
- Anatomy, geology, and spirituality | featured book from the John Martin Rare Book Room
It’s July and time for a beloved week in television: Shark Week. These sleek, weird, and beautiful apex predators are mesmerizing and also a little terrifying. But what do sharks have to do with medicine? Surprisingly, quite a […]
- Benjamin Bell’s cancer treatise | featured book from the John Martin Rare Book Room
Benjamin Bell (1749–1806), a pioneering Scottish surgeon and father of the Edinburgh school of surgery, authored A Treatise on the Hydrocele, on Sarcocele, or Cancer, and Other Diseases of the Testes (1791). Known for his rational, […]
- The invention of the stethoscope and a featured book from the John Martin Rare Book Room
This month, we highlight a book from the early 19th-century French physician who created the most iconic symbol of healthcare providers around the world. Assessing the condition of a patient in 1816, René Laënnec (1781–1826), rolled up […]
- Vegetable materia medica of the US | featured book from the John Martin Rare Book Room
We present William Paul Crillon Barton’s (1786–1856) masterwork, Vegetable materia medica of the United States (1817–1818). Barton was a well-known naval surgeon, medical botanist, artist, and professor. He was born on Nov. 17, 1786, […]
- New exhibition showcases recipes in the history of medicine
Visit Hardin Library’s new exhibit on the third floor to explore how home remedies developed into pharmacology. Starting with folks in the 16th–19th centuries, whose ailment treatments came from a trusted authority figure and consisted […]
- Pioneering female physican Aletta Jacobs | Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room
This Women’s History Month, the John Martin Rare Book Room highlights a book from the pioneering 19th-century Dutch physician and activist Aletta Jacobs. Born in 1854 in the Netherlands, Jacobs chafed at the status quo and the […]
- Notes on Johann Christian Reil, the first psychiatrist, from the John Martin Rare Book Room
Reil, was an 18th-century medical multihyphenate: physician-anatomist-physiologist. He was also the first true psychiatrist by virtue of coining the term “psychiatry” (or “psychiatrie” in German). His contributions to anatomy […]
- Using snow for anesthesia | Book of the month from the John Martin Rare Book Room @Hardin Library
BARTHOLIN, THOMAS (1616-1680). De nivis usu medico observationes variae. Printed in Hafniae [Copenhagen] by Matthias Godiche for Peter Haubold [bookseller], 1661. 16 cm tall. Born into a family of distinguished scientists and academics, […]
- 19th Century Philippines Herbal | July 2024 Book of the Month from the John Martin Rare Book Room @Hardin Library
BLANCO, MANUEL (1779–1845). Flora de filipinas. Printed in Manila at the Santo Tomas press, 1837. 21 cm tall. Manuel María Blanco Ramos was born on Nov. 24, 1779, in Navianos de Alba, a small village in the province of Zamora, Spain. […]
- Life in the sick room: essays | challenging gender norms for women | Book of the month from the John Martin Rare Book Room
MARTINEAU, HARRIETT (1802-1876). Life in the sick-room: Essays. Printed in Boston by L.C. Bowles and W. Crosby, 1844. 20 cm tall. Martineau was born in 1802 into a progressive Unitarian family in Norwich. Despite the societal expectations […]