The Medical Historical Library holds the largest existing collection of photographs of Harvey Cushing. The images span Cushing's life from his boyhood in Cleveland Ohio, his college days at Yale, his surgical work at Johns Hopkins under William Halsted, his leadership of a surgical unit in World War I, his success in establishing neurosurgery as a medical specialty at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, to his final years at the Yale School of Medicine. In celebration of the opening of the Cushing Center in June 2010, the Historical Library has created this digital collection of its photographs of Cushing and his colleagues, as well as selected drawings by Cushing, who was a talented artist.

These photographs come from numerous sources, and in many cases, the provenance is no longer clear. The major source was Cushing himself and the Cushing family. John F. Fulton collected images for his biography of Cushing in 1946 and left them to the Library. Walter W. Boyd photographed a series of professionally mounted views of Cushing and his colleagues at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital from 1929 to 1932. Other photographs have come from neurosurgeon/photographer Richard U. Light and the Richard U. Light Foundation.

This collection of images represents only a part of the Library's holdings, in particular the images digitized for the online exhibit, Harvey Cushing: A Journey Through His Life, as well as images digitized for patrons over the past ten years.

In addition to photographs, the collection includes many of the fine set of Cushing's drawings of the brain dating from his years at Johns Hopkins Hospital. There are also examples of Cushing drawings from the diaries he compiled on his many travels. The digitized collection will continue to grow.

There are more items from this collection that are not online. Please see the library’s catalog record for further details.