Reflections on Digitizing Medieval Medical and Botanical History
Last summer, as the Archival Systems Intern for the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden, I had the privilege of uploading several unique new items to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Among them was one of the earliest Western medical manuscripts, a medieval pharmacopeia known as the Circa Instans. This manuscript, digitized from the New York Botanical Garden’s physical collections, was written in approximately 1190, making it the oldest item in the BHL’s collection. Although I did not know that it would become the BHL’s oldest item when I added it to the library, I nevertheless found myself marveling at the Circa Instans and the history of this particular manuscript.
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