Famed Cardiologist Bruce Fye on Collecting Medical History Books

Bruce Fye  is an American retired cardiologist, medical historian, writer, bibliophile and philanthropist. He is emeritus professor of medicine and the history of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, and was the founding director of the institution’s W. Bruce Fye Center for the History of Medicine, named by the Clinic in his honour as a result of his philanthropy.

In addition to building up a large collection of books, offprints, and autographs relating to the history of cardiology, and to Sir William Osler during his lifetime, Fye has been a collector of prints and engravings relating to medicine and the portraits of physicians. In 2016, he donated many of his books to the Mayo Clinic.

We met in Montreal, during an American Olser Society meeting, to discuss book collecting and Bruce's life as a book collector.