The New York Times recently ran a story on the digitization of historic Arabic language manuscript material from Timbuktu dating back to the 17th century. The digitized texts represent works of law, science, medicine and the humanities. When the digitization project is completed, scholars will have access to material that will shed light on the methods of health care and medical education practices of the sub-Saharan region (See aluka.org/).

The AHC History Project hopes to shed a similar light on the health care delivery and health science education practices of the latter half of the twentieth century in the United States in order for researchers to better understand the educational practices, the relationships between funding institutions and their academic counterparts, and the areas of research focus during this time in academic medicine.

Although the Twin Cities is a far away both in time and space from the Golden Age of Timbuktu, the process of promoting health care education and practice are still subjects we record in written format and will be the things we pass on to future generations both near and far. Browse a few of the most recently added digitized texts to the digital archives from the AHC archives.