Skip to Main Content
Sources of biographical information
- American Medical Association Deceased Physicians Card File
From the mid 19th century until 1969, the AMA maintained card files containing biographical information on physicians, including their education, state licensing, places of practice, cause of death, and obituary citations. The collection consists of approximately 350,000 biographical entries.
- American National Biography Online About 17,500 deceased notable American men and women from all eras of American history. Includes illustrations and links to other web resources. Search methods include name, occupation, sex, birth date, death date, birthplace, contributor, keyword.
- Australian Medical Pioneers Index A listing of early physicians in Australia with additional information on early medical settlers in Australia.
- Canadian Health Obituaries Index File lists obituaries or death notices of Canadian medical personal that appeared in various medical journals listed below between 1844 and 2000. In cases where the actual journal is available online, the title of the journal has a hyperlink. N.B. If the link does not work, try clearing your cookies and then reload.
- Canadian Medical Hall of Fame Includes biographies of physicians and surgeons elected to the Hall of Fame.
- Canadian Necrology Database A unique source of obituary and death information for both prominent and lesser-known Canadians, covering a time span from the late 18th century to 1977.
- Catalog of the Scientific Community: 16th and 17th Centuries Galileo Project, Rice University.
- College of Physicians and Surgeons Obituary Database This database contains over 10 000 death notices of physicians who were graduates and/or faculty members of the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, dating back to 1811.
- From the BHO/British History Online Physicians and Irregular Medical Practitioners in London 1550-1640 Biographical database of medical practitioners in London in a key period in the history of medicine. This work is a companion to the book Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London: Patronage, Physicians, and Irregular Practitioners, 1550-1640, available at the Osler Library.
- Dictionary of Canadian Biography Contains authoritative information on many Canadian scientists and physicians. Also available in print.
- Dictionary of Medical Biography Provides authoritative biographical coverage of major medical practitioners in all times and cultures. While its emphasis is on practitioners within the Western medical tradition, it also covers practitioners of alternative medicines, as well as major figures within traditional Chinese, Indian, and Islamic medicine. Contains over 1100 entries on almost every important figure in medicine who ever lived.
- Dictionary of Scientific Biography (Complete) This is the digital version of the entire back-file of the original Dictionary of Scientific Biography. This comprehensive eBook includes the complete text of the 18-volume original (including supplements) plus the New Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Comprising 26-volume eBook.
- Distinguished Women of Past and Present: Health and Medicine Maintained by Danuta Bois as part of the larger site "Distinguished Women of Past and Present".
- Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences Profiled here are African American men and women who have contributed to the advancement of science and engineering. Based at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- Historia Nunc Vivat A listing of medical practitioners in New Zealand, 1840-1930.
- Indexes to Canadian Newspapers Held By Library and Archives Canada This listing includes many indexes of births and deaths annoucements from newspapers across the country.
- Lovell's Montreal Directory The digitized version of the annual directory for Montreal and the surrounding area covering the years 1842 to 1999. There are name and business directories (e.g. physicians' listings), plus other information.
- Medical Licenses Issued in Ontario and Quebec Prior to 1867 A downloadable PDF listing of physicians identified from multiple sources who received medical licenses before 1867.
- Munk's Roll of Members of the Royal College of Physicians An online index of inspiring physicians, also known as Munk's Roll, a series of obituaries or biographies of fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, starting from 1518 to the present day.
- National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs This is an online version of the print biographies of deceased members, which began publication in 1877 and contains detailed biographies of scientists and medical researchers such as William Henry Welch, Silas Weir Mitchell and Thomas Edison, as well as more recent members.
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Official site of the Nobel Foundation, Sweden, includes list of laureates.
- Nova Scotia - Medical Registers Scanned medical registers in PDF format from 1857-1990. Hosted by the Kellogg Library of Dalhousie University, Halifax.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography An outstanding resource for biographies of British citizens or people connected to Britain - also available in print.
- Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Online A collection of obituaries of fellows, a valuable source of historical and social information for researchers, allowing one to search for an obituary and at the same time see what books, museum objects and other materials the RCS holds relating to the subject.
- Profiles in Science Information on significant people in twentieth century biomedical research and public health, including detailed biographies and scans of archival material held by the National Library of Medicine. Physicians featured include Charles R. Drew, Francis Crick and Linus Pauling.
- Profiles of Canadian Scientists Produced by Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, includes nearly 40 doctors and medical researchers.
- Royal Society Biographical Memoirs and Biographical Records: The resource Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society contains member obituaries starting from 1830, while longer biographical memoirs are available from 1932. Help in locating obituaries can be found here. The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Archive Resource contains biographical records of past Fellows of the Royal Society from 1660 onwards.
- WhoNamedIt Dictionary of medical eponyms. Survey of medical phenomena named for a person, with a biography of that person.
- World Biographical Information Service Most comprehensive biographical database available, providing biographical information on over 6 million people from the 8th century B.C. to the present. Included are 8.5 million digital facsimile articles from biographical reference works.
