New York Academy of Medicine Library

Three co-workers and I recently took a tour of the New York Academy of Medicine's rare book library, co-hosted by Atlas Obscura. The talk was focused on medical photography from the 18th and 19th centuries, and afterwards we were allowed to explore the library on our own.

The speaker was wonderfully knowledgeable and interesting, but the materials really spoke for themselves. The library has approximately 32,000 volumes in its collection, most of which date from the 15th to the 18th centuries. This also includes "85 to 90 percent of the medical books printed in what is now the United States between the late 17th and early 19th centuries." We only saw a few of the books, but they were incredible examples of medical photography from the collections of doctors as well as government agencies that documented injuries during the Civil War.

In addition to beautiful books, they also showed us their stereoscopic skin clinic, which was used as a teaching tool. We were able to peer into the stereoscopes and see 3D images of skin diseases—if there's a better way to spend a Thursday night on the Upper East Side, I don't know of it.

The library room itself is quite small, but everything you'd expect from a rare book room. There are wooden, rolling library ladders and antique card catalogs, tiny desk lamps and row after row of beautifully bound books with fascinating titles. This was my first time at the NYAM, as well as my first time taking an Atlas Obscura-led tour, and I highly recommend both. I have some peculiar interests, so its always great to spend an evening amongst like-minded people—getting to browse autopsy photos was just an added bonus.