Enduring biographic heritage – Medical numismatics

The most enduring archive of medical biography is that composed of coins and medals. More than 20,000 commemorative and tribute medals comprise the domain of medical numismatics. Several thousand of these portray individual doctors whose lives and work are thus recorded in gold, silver, bronze and the alloys of medallic art. Such enduring records range from the names and images of the most famous and significant of doctors in international perspective, to those held in local or parochial esteem by their peers. The medical numismatic archive includes medals and coins which portray the gods of medicine; founders of the profession such as Hippocrates and Galen; and those who have been held in local esteem, all such that the record of their service to medicine might not be forgotten