Gift to Name History of Medicine Collections at Duke Honors Legacy of Dr. Josiah Charles Trent |
Duke University Libraries have received a $3 million gift from Duke Trustee Emerita Rebecca Trent Kirkland ’64, M.D.’68 along with her three sisters to name the History of Medicine Collections in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library in honor of their father, Dr. Josiah Charles Trent ’34 (1914–1948).
The gift recognizes Dr. Trent’s extraordinary legacy as Duke’s first division chief of thoracic surgery, a distinguished historian of medicine, and a visionary collector whose passion helped establish one of the nation’s most important medical history collections.
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Meet Jennifer Dai, the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Intern |
Since August 2025, Jennifer Dai has energetically and enthusiastically worked with a number of activities and collections in the Trent History of Medicine Collections. Jen has assisted students and patrons with reference questions, provided instruction support, and curated an exhibit.
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DIGITAL COLLECTIONS SPOTLIGHT |
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Doctors Gone Digital: Duke’s Japanese Medical Manuscript Collection Now Online |
A significant collection of sixty-three early modern Japanese medical manuscripts held by the Trent History of Medicine Collections has been digitized and is now publicly accessible online.
The collection offers a rich view of the diversity of Japanese medical practices during the Edo period, which drew from Chinese, Portuguese, and Dutch sources. Beyond the diverse content, the manuscripts also offer more than a hundred full-page, hand-drawn illustrations, many in vibrant color, of techniques, afflictions, and medical implements.
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Ṭoviyah Kats
Nidpas be-Ṿinitsiya : Nella Stamparia Bragadina, [1708?]
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This remarkable work from the early eighteenth century by Toviyah Kats (1652?-1729) is printed in Hebrew. Kats was a physician who studied in Germany; and his comprehensive work covers multiple disciplines including theology, astronomy, medicine, anatomy, botany, hygiene, and more. The work features an illustration (pictured above) comparing the body to a house and depicting how like rooms in a house, different parts of the body serve certain functions.
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Bacil A. Warren
Phoenix, Arizona : Native American Press, [1914]
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Bacil A. Warren was the physician at the U.S. Indian School in Leupp, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian Reservation. This small pamphlet provides an account of an infectious disease outbreak among children at an American Indian residential school in 1914. Such schools forced assimilation of indigenous children into the dominant American culture. Warren notes the outbreak included not only smallpox, but measles and chickenpox. This clinical account includes notes of quarantine, vaccination, and the need for improved health services.
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The Trent History of Medicine Collections continues to support instruction for undergraduate and graduate students. Below are some of the classes we worked with in the Fall and Spring semesters.
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- Ancient Sex Ed
- History of Chinese Medicine
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Premodern Disease
- Race, Genomics, and Society
- Rhetoric of Health & Medicine
- Visual Cultures of Medicine
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Palatable Poisons: The Dark History of Patent Medicine |
On display in the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room through October 2026 is the new exhibit Palatable Poisons: the Dark History of Patent Medicine.
Curated by Jennifer Dai, Palatable Poisons explores the history of patent medicine and how its dark history forged a path for the creation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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