History of Medicine

Le Roy Crummer (1872-1934) graduated from the University in 1893. He earned his MD degree from Northwestern and practiced and taught medicine until his health began to decline and he turned his attention to collecting books and manuscripts on the early history of medicine.

Crummer collected 39 editions of Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici (The Religion of a Doctor), a spiritual testament and an early psychological self-portrait first published in 1643. This Latin edition, published in 1743, was the impetus for Crummer’s “book collecting mania,” documented in the notes and postcard kept in the book. Crummer bequeathed to the University the vast majority of his very impressive collection, first described in a catalog Crummer’s wife Myrtle presented him on the occasion of fifty-fifth birthday titled A Catalogue, Manuscripts and Medical Books Printed before 1640 in the Library of Le Roy Crummer.