title: Enduring biographic heritage - Medical numismatics.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Lady Cilento Children's Hospital, Queensland, Australia.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pearn
mesh_terms: D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D009717:Numismatics; D010820:Physicians / Q000266:history*
keywords: Copley Medal; Dr James George Beaney (1828–1891); Medical numismatics; Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology; Renaissance medical medals; Surgeon-Major Peter Shepherd (1841–1879)