Join us next week for a lunch time talk with historian Dr Bipasha Bhattacharyya on exclusion and discrimination in interwar medical education, via the correspondence of Dr John Orr, Dean, Extramural School of Medicine, Royal Colleges, Edinburgh (1924–1945). buff.ly/RAFPg2C

Happy birthday to us, we have been championing surgical excellent for 521 years! On 1 July 1505 the Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh were formally incorporated as a craft guild of the city of #Edinburgh. In 1778 our amended charter brought The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh into being. 🎂🎉

Happy birthday to us, we have been championing surgical excellent for 521 years! On 1 July 1505 the Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh were formally incorporated as a craft guild of the city of #Edinburgh. In 1778 our amended charter brought The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh into being. 🎂🎉

Highly recommend 👇

Surgeons' Hall Museum@surgeonshall.bsky.social · last mo.

In our latest podcast episode we’re joined by Malcolm MacCallum and Thomas Elliott to trace Edinburgh’s medical origins- from pioneering practices to the modern reassessment of the human cost behind medical advances. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. shows.acast.com/beyond-the-k...

The Scottish Horse Mounted Field Ambulance football team, 1915

In our latest episode of Beyond the Knife, we are joined by Dr Aaron Allan who explores the early formation of the Incorporation of Barber Surgeons in Edinburgh. You can listen to Beyond the Knife wherever you get your podcasts! shows.acast.com/beyond-the-k...

📢Find out about the history of the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh at next Tuesday's lunchtime talk at 1.15 pm @surgeonshall.bsky.social www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lunch-time...

It's #DentistDay! This is Lilian Murray who became the first female dentist to qualify in the UK. She initially tried to enrol at the London Dental School but was refused entry to the building in case she distracted male students & was interviewed on the pavement instead! #InternationalWomensDay

📢 And as a reminder, tomorrow is the closing date for our joint 'Writer in Residence' vacancy with the University of St. Andrews. Come use our archives! Link here (and a picture of our reading room to tempt you) www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

It's #WorldBookDay so please enjoy some 17th century surgical instruments from ‘Mellificium chirurgiæ: or, the Marrow of Chirurgery' by James Cooke. This was first published in 1648, and became the standard surgical text of the late 1600s #earlymodernsurgery

📢In partnership with St Andrews University, we're looking for a 'Joseph Bell Writer in Residence at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh' to pursue a writing project drawing on our archives. Stipend of up to £15,000. Closing date 6 March 2026. www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Aaaagh - if I didn’t have a full-time job I’d absolutely apply for this 😭 good luck to everyone who does apply!

RCSEd Library & Archive@rcsedlibandarchive.bsky.social · 6mo ago

📢In partnership with St Andrews University, we're looking for a 'Joseph Bell Writer in Residence at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh' to pursue a writing project drawing on our archives. Stipend of up to £15,000. Closing date 6 March 2026. www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

This sounds absolutely amazing!

RCSEd Library & Archive@rcsedlibandarchive.bsky.social · 6mo ago

📢In partnership with St Andrews University, we're looking for a 'Joseph Bell Writer in Residence at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh' to pursue a writing project drawing on our archives. Stipend of up to £15,000. Closing date 6 March 2026. www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Wonderful opportunity for someone to do great work in two of the best and loveliest archives in the world:

RCSEd Library & Archive@rcsedlibandarchive.bsky.social · 6mo ago

📢In partnership with St Andrews University, we're looking for a 'Joseph Bell Writer in Residence at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh' to pursue a writing project drawing on our archives. Stipend of up to £15,000. Closing date 6 March 2026. www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

The residency is open to writers or researchers in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, screenplay, literary and/or historical scholarship, life-writing and medical humanities. Interviews to be held online 20th March.

📢In partnership with St Andrews University, we're looking for a 'Joseph Bell Writer in Residence at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh' to pursue a writing project drawing on our archives. Stipend of up to £15,000. Closing date 6 March 2026. www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Anatomical illustration of the heart with flaps raised to expose the left and right ventricles, in René Descartes ‘De Homine’. Published posthumously in 1662 due to fear of the Roman Inquisition, it is believed to be the first European textbook on physiology

It's #NationalToothacheDay so just going to leave this here.

It's #NationalHedgehogDay 🦔 and we're just prickling with excitement 😁 so to celebrate here's a rather adorable #hedgehog from Historiae Animalium (c.1602) by Conrad Gesner.

Our Blood and Guts walking tours will return on the 24th of January! Hear little known accounts of iconic writers, chloroform tea parties, pioneering women, grave robbing and of course Burke and Hare. Tours run every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/blood-and-...

We will be closed for the festive break and re-open Monday 5 January 2026. We wish you all a very happy and peaceful holiday!

When your surgeon's absolutely buzzing to be in a Santa suit. Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, 1913

If anyone needs help wrapping Christmas presents to make them look beautiful our College Archivist is available. Don't all rush at once.

Medical students outside the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, 1912.

A plate from “Engravings, Explaining the Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints” by Scottish surgeon-anatomist John Bell FRCSEd, published in 1794. Bell illustrated his own works based on dissections he carried out in his Edinburgh anatomy school.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Gentlemen!

Clocking on for spooky season.

We haven't been round these parts much recently so dropping in to say hello and please enjoy these images of Baillière’s Synthetic Anatomy. Published in the 1920s & a descendent of the earlier paper anatomical flap books, each section uses glassine transparent overlays. Have a good weekend!

#EdinburghSurgeonsProject - August 1668 - Five dollars (Scots) given to the widow ('relict') of Hector Mclie, surgeon, to pay for his funeral expenses, a traditional function of craft incorporations. #corporatism #palaeography

As knowledge of asepsis increased, the design of instruments changed to allow easy sterilisation. metal boxes that could be cleaned properly also replaced the wooden, velvet lined boxes of the 19th century. Surgeons still sterilised and re-used needles between procedures.