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Designated Outstanding Collection

Welcome to SurgiCat

SurgiCat is the online catalogue of the Museums and Archive collections held at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It includes information and images to help identify and research organic preparations, objects, and documents in the collections.

The catalogue and collections include historic items and preparations some of which contain images and language that are outdated, offensive, and/or inaccurate. While these are preserved for research, they do not represent RCS England’s commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Some of the language used to describe organic preparations, objects, and documents in the catalogue records is outdated, offensive and/or inaccurate. RCS England Museums and Archives are actively working to address this and welcome suggestions for improvements or change. Please email RCS England Museums or Archives to raise any issues about the records.

Archive collections

  • Search the College archive to find records that tell the history and inner workings of the College from minutes and correspondence to examination and membership records
  • Explore collections donated to the College by its Members and Fellows, from personal papers, case notes and correspondence to recipe books, diaries and photographs
  • Access hospital records the College holds under the Public Records Act (1958)

The archive collections contain records which are restricted under the Data Protection Act (2018). Descriptions of these records are included in this online catalogue with full details of restrictions.

Museum collections

Search over 50,000 museum catalogue records to find out more about:

  • Human* anatomy and pathology preparations
  • Zoological (non-human) anatomy and pathology preparations
  • Surgical and medical instruments and equipment
  • Art works – historic and contemporary paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings
  • Furniture, silver and ceramics

* The museum collections contain human remains. The human remains searchable via this online catalogue are all over 100 years old. Human remains which are less than 100 years old are not included in this online catalogue. These fall under the Human Tissue Act (2004) and are used to support medical education.

Copyright for Museum collections

Text and images published on SurgiCat are protected by copyright law. RCS England is committed to respecting copyright and other intellectual property rights. Images of some objects have been withheld for copyright reasons and images of some human remains are withheld to protect dignity. You can read RCS England’s takedown procedure which outlines what to do if you believe an infringement has occurred.

All images and text in SurgiCat can be used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. You may share and remix these items provided that you do not do so for commercial purposes, that you attribute RCS England Museums or Archive Collections, and that when you distribute these items you do so under the same or a similar license. For additional information see the full license text.

For commercial use of text and/or images please email RCS England Museums for more information.

Project Sponsors

The development of the RCS England Museum and Archive Databases has been generously supported by grants from the organisations below:

Designated as an Outstanding Collection, Supported by the MLA Designation Challenge Fund Wellcome Trust The Pilgrim Trust

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