Featured Publications

Harvey Society Lectures

The Harvey Society was founded on April 1, 1905, by New York scientists and physicians who met at the home of physiologist Graham Lusk. The group included Samuel J Meltzer, William H Park, Edward K Dunham, James Ewing, Frederick S Lee, Christian Herter, Simon Flexner, George B Wallace, Theodore C. Janeway, Phoebus A. Levene, and Eugene L Opie.

The stated purpose of the society was to forge a "closer relationship between the purely practical side of medicine and the results of laboratory investigation."

Since its founding, the Harvey Society has sponsored an annual series of lectures given by leading biomedical researchers, including more than sixty scientists from The Rockefeller University. The lectures reflect "the evolution of physiology and physiological chemistry into biochemistry and the development of molecular biology from the roots of bacteriology and biochemistry.”

Presented here are Harvey Society Lectures delivered by Rockefeller University faculty.

JEM: The Beginnings (Exhibits)

In celebration of the 125th Anniversary of Journal of Experimental Medicine, the Markus Library presents a new exhibit that highlights the lives and careers of two first editors of the journal: William H. Welch and Simon Flexner.

JEM was founded in January of 1896 at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine by William Welch, the school’s founder and also the first president of the Board of Scientific Directors of The Rockefeller Institute. From its inception, Welch edited the journal by himself—even editing manuscripts while attending baseball games—and he eventually found that it placed too heavy a burden on his time. By March 1902, the editorial burden became too great for Welch, who stopped publishing papers and began stockpiling manuscripts and unanswered correspondence in his office, explaining the conspicuous absence of published papers from 1902 to 1904.

In October 1902, Welch appealed to the board of The Rockefeller Institute to take over the journal. The transfer of ownership and publication responsibilities required the physical transfer of manuscripts from Welch’s office, which fell to the director of The Rockefeller Institute, Simon Flexner, who carried the abandoned manuscripts from Baltimore to New York in a suitcase.

The first issue of JEM published by The Rockefeller Institute appeared in February 1905, with Flexner serving as editor, and the journal has been published regularly since then.

Rare Books (Special Collections)

Most of the books in the Markus Library Rare Book Collection were bequeathed by Alfred Einstein Cohn (1879-1957), emeritus of The Rockefeller Institute, one of the first cardiologists in the U.S., a scholar whose interests encompassed many fields and earned his high regard in the world of culture.

The scope of the collection is broad, encompassing the humanities, medicine, and natural history, including botany, agriculture, and geography.

Dr. Cohn's rare volumes of scientific and medical interest, published in 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, include some of the major works of many of the great names in the history of medical science, often in the first editions: Celsus, Thomas Bartholinus, G. Borelli, Malpighi, Leuwenhoek, Richard Lower, Mead, and many others.