6/7 Van Pelt Closure: Due to needed electrical switchgear and breaker replacement, the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center will be closed on Saturday, June 7. It will reopen for regular hours on June 8.

Changes coming to Books by Mail: Starting in fall 2025, Books by Mail items will only be shipped to addresses in the contiguous United States 50 miles or further from campus. We will make exceptions for students, faculty, and staff with disabilities. Learn more

Fisher restoration: Fisher Fine Arts Library is open and operating normally during ongoing exterior work. Find more details about this important restoration project.

Ancient Medicine

The Penn Libraries have a near comprehensive collection of ancient medicine scholarship published in both the English and German languages.

Plant illustrations from an arabic manuscript.

Collection Overview

Ancient medicine is a growing field crossing disciplinary boundaries at Penn and across academia. The growth of the published research reflects this interest that is manifested in the work of Penn faculty, graduate students and undergraduates. The Penn Libraries have a near comprehensive collection of Ancient medicine scholarship published in both the English and German languages. Our collections include complete runs of the series Studies in Ancient Medicine (Brill), Corpus medicorum Graecorum (Akademie Verlag), Scientia Graeco-Arabica, and the relatively new series: Medicine and the Body in Antiquity (Routledge).  The Penn Libraries have significant holdings in the theories and practice of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome as well as important studies in the Arabic. This includes about 180 titles in special collections and Rare Books and Manuscripts, close to 400 titles in the original Greek or Latin, nearly 400 in Arabic, and about 500 titles by or about Galen or Hippocrates.

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