Our immediate aim is to describe and index the contents of all medieval manuscript images with medical components presently held in North American collections (55-60 manuscripts, 3000-4000 images). Our goal is to provide new information for those who seek to study the graphic legacy of the medieval medical mind by producing a comprehensive database of medieval medical iconography. Two products will eventuate from this project: index entries in the form of ASCII text files on computer disk, adapted to a free-form text-retrieval program, and a printed catalogue indexed by iconographic content and by categories of manuscript information (present location, origin (when known), author and title, dates of manuscript and of miniatures, and artist, when known). The project will require the use and extension of two types of existing library terminology: inconographic descriptors (from the Editors File of the Princeton Index of Christian Art and subject headings (from the Library of Congress Subject Heading List and the Medical Subject Heading List). No one has yet attempted to provide a central indexing vocabulary for a secular field of medieval knowledge. Our adaptation to medical images of the I.C.A. Editor's File will thus represent a pioneering effort in the study of the medieval sciences. We will supplement these specialized terms with subject headings from the lists mentioned above, and will cooperate with existing study groups proposing additional headings designed to add historical depth to MeSH. Though the number of illustrated medical manuscripts from the European Middle Ages in North America may seem small, we believe the """"""""American collection"""""""" provides a fine (and manageable) cross-section of the European material, including some of the largest and most lavishly illustrated surviving examples. In these miniatures one can observe in its early stages the evolution of the health sciences -- from surgery and obstetrics to pharmacology and neuropsychiatry -- into their modern forms.
