This morning the Wellcome Library announced its release of 100,000 of its historical images under an open license (CC-BY - meaning they are free for any re-use provided that the Wellcome Library is credited). The range and quality of the images released is phenomenal. The collection covers more than a thousand years of imagery relating to the history of medicine, including manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements - from medieval Persian anatomy to the satirical prints of Rowlandson and Gillray.

This move by the Wellcome is yet another recent example of a hugely respected institution releasing digitisations of its public domain content under an open license - with the last 6 months seeing The Getty and The British Library making similar moves. It's a really promising sign of a more general shift toward opening up public domain content that we've seen taking place in the cultural sector over the last couple of years. Wonderful stuff!

This selection from Wellcome's release that we've chosen below is from just the first 1% of the 100,000 images made available. Remember, all are published under an CC-BY license so, if re-using, you must credit the "Wellcome Library, London". Just click on the images below to see them on the Wellcome Images site where you can learn more about them and also download higher resolution versions.