The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7498 p474
19 April 2008

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Letters to the Editor

Libraries

Merlin is welcome in Manchester

From Mr G. B. Lockwood, MRPharmS

I read with interest the article by Merlin entitled “Libraries and the odour of knowledge” (PJ, 22 March 2008, p346). I would be pleased to show Merlin other areas of probable interest in Manchester University. The special collections at the John Rylands library, Deansgate, are a component part of the John Rylands university library, which supplies knowledge to the largest student (and academic staff) numbers in the UK.

The main library holds many historic texts in its collections, including copies of The Pharmaceutical Journal going back to Volume 1 (1841), along with more than four million printed books and manuscripts, over 41,000 electronic journals and 500,000 electronic books, as well as several hundred databases.

Another area of probable interest would be the Manchester Museum (the museum of the University of Manchester) which, from 1850 onwards, absorbed the collections of the Manchester Geological Society and the Natural History Society, and has world famous collections of Egyptology.

The herbarium was founded in 1860 by a coalition of several major individual or corporate collections, in particular, the two 19th century Manchester businessmen and amateur naturalists, Charles Bailey and Cosmo Melvill.

There are also many items of historical importance and interest, such as specimens collected by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle, specimens collected by Admiral Franklin’s expeditions in search of the north west passage, and collections of the great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus.

These historical collections and the subsequent expansion of the number of specimens makes this herbarium second only to that of Kew in the UK. The benefits of the herbarium to pharmacognocists and pharmaceutical companies are inestimable, as it allows them to identify plant material by comparison with type specimens.

Longstanding collaboration with the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences has taken place in areas as diverse as plant materials involved in mummification, and forensic criminal investigations.

Brian Lockwood,
School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences,
University of Manchester

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