Once the World Record Holder for the Most Overdue Library Book

By 1823, the young Medical College of Ohio housed a library of 2,000 books for students’ use. One of those texts, an 1805 book by Dr. J. Currie on febrile diseases, was checked out by student John P. Harrison, who went on to practice medicine in Louisville, Ky., but died in Cincinnati in 1849, felled by one of the worst cholera outbreaks in the city’s history.

Dr. Harrison is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, and the book he borrowed was returned to UC 145 years after he was a student.

It was ultimately returned to the University of Cincinnati on Dec. 7, 1968, by Richard Dodd, a newspaper editor from Winamac, Indiana, and the grandson and great-grandson of physicians educated in Cincinnati. He inherited the tome from these family members.

The university waived the calculated late fee of $2,646. For a time, it held the world record as the most overdue library book ever taken out by a borrower.