Waring Library receives stamps, postcard collection
The Waring Historical Library has received the final installment of a stamp collection gift from James E. Kay, M.D.
College
of Medicine graduate Dr. James Kay and Waring Historical Library curator
Jane Brown begin to organize the stamp collection Kay has donated.
The collection was given during a two-year period and consists of 58 volumes of stamps and postcards as well as a reference library for stamp collecting. Medical stamps dominate the collection, but it includes all aspects of the health professions as well as post cards for hospitals, first-day covers, and sheets of commemorative stamps.
Kay, a 1967 graduate of the College of Medicine, currently practices in Sumter.
“My interest in stamp collecting began when I was 10 or 11 years old. The focus of the collection turned to medicine when I became a physician,” said Kay.
Some examples of stamps in the collection are hospitals, malaria, Polio,
pharmacy, pioneers of the Old West, and biographic such as Phoebe Pember
(a Civil War nurse), Elvis Pressley, Marilyn Monroe, Mary Walker, M.D.
(Army Surgeon), and Percy Julian (chemist who discovered drugs to treat
arthritis and glaucoma). Many of the outstanding contributors and contributions
to medicine have been honored on stamps. Plans for the collection include
use in exhibits, teaching and by researchers.
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