History of Science
The history of the biological and physical sciences is strongly represented in landmark editions of works by Newton, Galileo, Darwin, Hooke, Leeuwenhoek, Linnaeus, Jussieu, Gessner, and Audubon, among many others. The collection also includes anatomical works by Vesalius, Harvey, and Fabricius, as well as Renaissance medical herbals, including, Fuchs’ De Historia Stirpium(1542); Hortus Sanitatis (1517); Mattioli’s De Materia Medica (1583); and numerous other beautifully illustrated botanical works. Special Collections also holds numerous 18th-century scientific periodicals, including long runs of Memoires of the French Academie des sciences and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
These works complement the University of Missouri’s emphasis on the life sciences, support interdisciplinary research, and provide an important access point for the study of intellectual history and scientific inquiry.
How to Use the Collection
With a few exceptions, the collections can be accessed and requested through the library catalog. Finding aids for individual collections are linked on this website. Materials are available for use in the Special Collections Reading Room (room 401) during regular hours. Materials do not circulate.
Finding Aids for History of Science
Donald Silver Rare Book Room, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library
The Rare Book Room was given to the library by the Department of Surgery and is dedicated to Dr. Donald Silver, an Emeritus professor of the…
Gary E. and Janet J. Venable Antiquarian Atlas & Map Collection
The Venable Collection documents the history of cartography, geography, and exploration from the sixteenth through the early twentieth century.…
Historic Textbook Collection.
Scope and Contents The books are useful today as a survey of pedagogical methods and contents as well as a portrayal of the American popular mind of…
Rare Books
The Rare Books Collection is the default designation for materials in Special Collections that are acquired as individual items. Like Special…
Related Exhibits
150 Years of On the Origin of Species
150 Years of The Origin of Species: The Historical Journey from Specimens to Species to Geneswas a physical exhibit mounted...
Controlling Heredity
This virtual exhibit explores the intersections between ethics and the pseudo-science of eugenics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth...
Leaders and Heroes
Every age, every race, has its leaders and heroes. ~ Ohíye S’a (Charles A. Eastman) Libraries tend to hold those materials that...
No Bones About It: An exhibit of spooky skeletons
On October 24, 2023, Special Collections held a spooky exhibit! From 11am until 2pm, we were in Ellis 114a with...
Selected Items
Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum / olim ab Edoardo Wottono, Conrado Gesnero, Thomaque Pennio inchoatum: tandem Tho. Movfeti Londinâtis operâ sumptibus´q; maximis concinnatum, auctum, perfectum: et ad vivum expressis iconibus suprà quingentis illustratum.
Illus. t.-p.
Paging irregular, no. 286-295 omitted.
Edited by Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne.
MU: Pre-1801 imprint.
The planter's kalendar ; or, The nurseryman's & forester's guide, in the operations of the nursery, the forest, and the grove / By the late Walter Nicol. Ed. and completed by Edward Sang.
xx, 595 pages, 3 plates. ; 22 cm
An essay upon nursing, and the management of children, from their birth to three years of age : In a letter to one of the governors of the Foundling Hospital. Published by order of the general committee for transacting the affairs of the said hospital.
The 4th ed., with additions ...
Geological sketches / By L. Agassiz.
229 pages ; 21 cm
Contents: Glacial period.--The parallel roads of Glen Roy, in Scotland.--Ice-period in America.--Glacial phenomena in…
A Statistical Map of Missouri Showing Manufacturing and Mechanical Industries by Counties. With A Soil and Mineral Map of Missouri Showing the Principal Soil Areas and the Regions of Coal, Lead, and Zinc.
On the reverse: A Soil and Mineral Map of Missouri.
De Indiae utriusque re naturali et medica libri quatuordecim
Contents: Piso, W. I. De aëribus, aquis, & locis; II. De natura & cura morborum, Occidentali Indiæ, imprimis Brasiliæ, familiarium; III. De…