The library at Wellcome Collection
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Search Tips
Searches with more than one word will find items with all the words anywhere in the record.
Example: herbal medicine
Cholera France 19th century
To broaden your search, use OR between words.
Example: AIDS OR HIV
To exclude words from your search, use AND NOT between words.
Example: heart AND NOT disease
You can search for words that have the same beginning, eg. midwife, midwives, midwifery, by adding an asterisk * at the end of the stem.
Example: midwi* child* or infant*
You can use a question mark to replace a letter/letters in the middle of a word.
Example: wom?n will search for woman and women
Use near to specify words close to each other, in any order. Use before and after to specify word order, with any number of words in between. To search for the terms “near”, “before” and “after”, enclose them in quotation marks.
To limit your search to specific fields within records, or by language, publication date or location, use an advanced word search.
If the Author etc. has a family name and a forename, enter the family name first.
Example: Stopes M
Example: Dawkins Richard
If the Author etc. is a corporate body (e.g. company, workshop, government), type the name in the normal order.
Example: American Medical Association
Example: Medical Research Council
Search for as much or as little of each name as you wish.
Search for as much or as little as you wish from the beginning of the title.
Example: greatest ben
Example: greatest
If you limit your title search to 'Pictures' you are searching a description, which substitutes for the title.
If the author has a family name and a forename, enter the family name first. If the author is a corporate body (e.g. company, workshop, government), enter the name in normal order.
Search for as much or as little of each name as you wish.
Examples:
Name: Harvey, Words: circulation
Name: Freud S, Words: ego and the id
Name: King Edward's Hospital Fund, Words: report on alcohol
Name: Nussbaum M, Words: clones
Name: Ridley M, Words: sex red
Search for as much or as little of the Topic (MeSH) as you wish.
Example: military
Example: military hygiene
Example: orthopedics history
Example: genetics behavioral
Some of the Library's older material is not subject indexed at all and will not be found using this search. You can improve your results by using a word search instead. LIMIT your search to exclude unwanted material.
The Library uses two types of controlled subject headings: one is MeSH (your current search) and the other is Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). For fuller results, you should search in both MeSH and LCSH indexes
Since mid-2002, MeSH has been principally used for indexing medical subjects. In catalogue records created before then, it was used for non-medical subjects as well.
Experienced MeSH users: Please note that this library does not used the 2005 revised History of Medicine heading. Try your search under the LCSH Topics tab, using the terms medicine history. The MeSH headings History of Dentristy and History of Nursing are used by the library.
This is a controlled vocabulary search. The topic terms are selected from a list maintained by the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, which uses American spelling and vocabulary.
Search for as much or as little of the LCSH topic as you wish.
Example: technology
Example: technology and civilization
Example: art
Example: poor laws
Some of the Library's older material is not subject indexed at all and will not be found using this search. You can improve your results by using a word search instead. LIMIT your search to exclude unwanted material.
The Library uses two types of controlled subject headings: one is LCSH (your current search) and the other is Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). For fuller results, you should search in both LCSH and MeSH indexes
Since mid-2002, LCSH has been used principally for indexing non-medical subjects, eg. literature, religion. In catalogue records created before then, it was used for medical subjects as well.
Type as much or as little of the NLM classmark as you wish.
Example: WB100
Example: WB300 1932
The Library uses the NLM classification as a shelving and subject arrangement for its clinical collections, medical textbooks and journals.
Search for as much or as little of the Barnard classmark as you wish.
Example: CVE
Example: CB
Example: CB.41
Example: DA.AL
The Library uses the Barnard classification as a shelving and subject arrangement for its history of medicine material.
Search for as much or as little of the Medicine and Society classmark as you wish.
Example: BA
Example: JA 51
Search for as much or as little of the genre as you wish.
Example: anatomical atlases
Example: emblem pictures
Example: patent
Example: almanacs
Example: poems
Example: web sites
Example: electronic journals
Example: DVDs
To see what genres and media are used in the catalogue, type any sequence of letters, e.g. ppp then press <Enter> or click Submit Search and you will be shown the alphabetical list of terms
If the number you are searching for has a letter at the beginning or the end (e.g. L 1234 or 1234i), use the letter as well as the number, without spaces between them.
Example Copy photograph no: V11215
Example ISBN: 18693794
The subject may be a person, a corporate body, a place, a commercial brand or a title.
For people, type the family name (if any) first.
Search for as much or as little of the name, brand or title (as subjects) as you wish.
Example personal name: mesmer f
Example commercial brand: Germolene
Example corporate name: Credit Suisse
Example title: Almanach de gotha
Example place: Srinagar
Search for the time period you wish.
Example: 17th century
Example: prehistoric