The Bathtub collection consists of fragments found in the old and rare bindings of the NLM’s rare book collection when items were rebound and conserved in the 1940s and 1950s. It is called the “Bathtub Collection” because then-curator Dorothy Schullian took the leftovers of conservation work home and soaked them in her bathtub to retrieve the often interesting bits and pieces of medieval manuscripts and early printed ephemera she found.

Slowly and ploddingly, especially where they had been glued together to form the linings of covers, I have soaked them apart in my bathtub. My knees, I assure you, have suffered, but I have entered a bibliographer’s paradise …” (Dorothy M. Schullian. “Here the Frailest Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 47 (1953))

Please visit the site at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/bathtub/

NLM is also home to numerous genealogical resources for those seeking information about ancestors with medical or health related training. Among these is the AMA Deceased Physicians Card File, a collection of nearly 400,000 index cards created by the AMA between about 1901 and 1969 focusing on everyone in the U.S. who received a medical degree. The cards were updated throughout the physician’s career with information about degrees obtained, licensing, addresses and finally cause of death and sometimes obituary citations and even portraits. Please visit the site at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/genealogy/

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