Gift Honors Legacy of a Doctor, Historian and Book Collector

Four daughters honor their father by renaming the History of Medical Collections at Duke Libraries in honor of their father, Josiah Charles Trent

Ivory Manniquin
Ivory anatomical manikin from the 17th or 18th century. The Trent History of Medicine Collections hold the largest number of such manikins in North America.

This is a summary of a story originally published on Duke University Libraries.

A new gift honors Josiah Charles Trent’s legacy as Duke’s first division chief of thoracic surgery, as a historian of medicine, and as a book collector who helped to create one of America’s most important medical history collections.

Duke University Libraries recently received a $3 million gift from Duke Trustee Emerita and alumna Rebecca Trent Kirkland and her three sisters to name the History of Medicine Collections in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library in honor of Trent, their father.

Kirkland, who is also a physician, and her sisters — Mary Duke Trent Jones, Sarah “Sally” Elizabeth Trent Harris (also Duke alums) and Barbara Biddle Trent Kimbrell — are the children of Josiah Trent and Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans. Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans was a renowned philanthropist, civic leader and member of Duke’s founding family.

“The Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Collection gifted to Duke in 1956 was a decades long project of our parents,” Kirkland said. That gift laid the foundation for what would become the History of Medicine Collections in the Rubenstein Library that is internationally recognized for its depth and interdisciplinary scope.

Josiah Charles Trent was born and raised in Oklahoma. He arrived at Duke as an undergraduate and studied English, history and premedical subjects. He married Mary Duke Biddle in 1938, the same year he earned a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1946, he was appointed associate professor of surgery at Duke and chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery.

Despite a demanding clinical career and a long battle with cancer, Trent remained deeply engaged in academic, cultural and humanitarian endeavors. He wrote more than 40 clinical and historical articles and served on the board of Durham’s Lincoln Hospital.

After his premature death from lymphoma at age 34, Trent’s wife worked to ensure that his vision would endure.

 “Considering what he amassed and collected during one short decade, I felt a total obligation and the desire to do my absolute best for the future of those books,” she wrote in 1956.

For more on the life of Josiah Charles Trent, go to Duke University Libraries.