Hyams Collection

In 1930, the Godfrey M. Hyams Trust presented the Boston Medical Library with $25,000 to build and maintain a collection of rare books and manuscript materials on Jewish medicine and science. Early manuscripts and a 1491 edition of the Canon Medicinae of Avicenna—the only medical work to be printed in Hebrew during the 15^th century—form the cornerstone of the Hyams Collection. A 1593 manuscript outlining the privileges granted to Jews in Pisa and Livorno by Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, includes the right to practice medicine. Other rare items include first editions of the Aphorismi Secundum Doctrinam Galeni (1489), De Astrologia (1555) and De Regimine Sanitatis (circa 1481) of Maimonides, the Liber Elhavi (1486) of Rhazes, early works on circumcision, and Garcia de Orta’s Coloquios dos Simples, e Drogas he Cousas Mediçinais da India—the third book to be published in India. Another jewel of the Hyams Collection is the Hand-apparat, a 4,000-item pamphlet collection of August von Wassermann (1866-1925), the German bacteriologist who worked with Robert Koch and devised a test for syphilis.