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Online catalogue
Access to Surgicat, the online catalogue of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. This page also includes links to groups of objects in the catalogue, including the collection of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons.
The museum and archive collections of The Royal College of Surgeons can now be searched via SurgiCat, our online catalogue. SurgiCat contains information and images about the objects and specimens in the museum collections.
Highlights
Recent acquisitions
We still add objects and specimens to the collection in line with our Acquisitions Policy. Items we have acquired recently include:
- An engraving of the College from 1828, after a painting by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd.
- A group portrait of the Board of the Faculty of Dental Surgery to commemorate its 60th anniversary
- A print by James Mundie of a conjoined skull from the Hunterian Collection.
- Three 19th-century portraits of important figures associated with the College from St George's Hospital Medical School
- A series of display pieces made by Margot Cooper of Limbs & Things Ltd, showing models used for surgical skills training.
- See details of all objects acquired so far this year.
New cataloguing
We have been improving the catalogue records for things we already have. Last year we added records and images for our collections of medals, drug jars and silver, and improved the catalogue of our paintings and prints. We have just started a three-year project with the Faculty of Dental Surgery to recatalogue our Odontological Collection. There are over 10,000 specimens: find out more details of the specimens of human and comparative dental anatomy.
Special projects
The Hunterian Museum and BAPRAS (the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons) have launched a joint project to catalogue the Anthony Wallace Archive. The archive contains instruments, drawings and photographs relating to the history of plastic surgery. View a list of objects from the archive.
Research resources
To help researchers looking for information about the museum collections (past and present), we are compiling so finding aids for the museum archives, most of which are not yet listed on Surgicat.
- List of archives relating to excavated human remains, mostly from the UK, sent to the RCS museums before 1960 (PDF, 230k).
- List of museum letters, 1800-1850, in date and name order (PDFs, 600k)
- List of museum letters, 1858-1907, in date and name order (PDFs, 1.5MB)
- List of museum letters, 1907-1979, in date and name order (PDFs, 5MB)
- Supplementary list of museum letters, 1880s-1970s, in date and name order (PDFs, 200k)
