OSLER LIBRARY NEWSLETTERMcGill University, Montreal, Canada No. 69- February 1992

The Centenary of Osler'sThe Principles and Practice of Medicine

ime is a merciless arbi-

ter that deals dispas-sionately with theworks of men. Amongscientific literary works,many bear the dualburden of mediocrityand obsolescence and

quickly pass into the forgiving oblivion ofdisuse and abondonment. For a scientific

work, particularly a medical textbook, to beremembered and revered at its centennial isan extraordinary achievement. Such anevent, the centenary of William Osler's mag-num apus, The Principles and Practice of Medi-cine, occurs at this time.

In 1890, Osler, sensing the need for a newtextbook of medicine and encouraged bythe overtures of several leading publishers,began work on the textbook He had ac-cepted the chair of medicine at Johns Hop-kins in 1889 and was able to delegate muchof his responsibilities at the Hospital to hisresidents, William S. Thayer and Henri A.Lafleur. In addition, the delay in the open-ing of the Medical School provided himwith additional leisure time for writing. Os-ler has written candidly of these events:

"On several occasions in Philadelphia, Iwas asked by Lea Bros. to prepare a workon Diagnosis and had half promised one;indeed I had prepared a couple of chapters,but continually procrastinated on the pleathat up to the 40th year a man is fit for betterthings than text-books. Time went on and asI crossed this date I began to feel that theenergy and persistence necessary for thetask were lacking. In Sept. 1890 I returnedfrom a four months' trip in Europe, shookmyself, and towards the end of the monthbegan a work on Practice. I had nearly fin-ished the chapter on Typhoid Fever whenDr. Granger, Messrs. Appleton's agent,came from New York to ask me to preparea text-book on medicine. We haggled for afew weeks about terms and finally, sellingmy brains to the devil, I signed the contract.My intention had been to publish the workmyself and have Lippincott or Blakiston{both of whom offered) handle the book, butthe bait of a guaranteed circulation of 10,000copies in two years and fifteen hundred dol-lars on the date of publication was too glit-tering and I was hooked."(1,2)

Osler received the first copy of the bookon February 24, 1892, and according to theoft-told story of his unromantic proposal,tossed it into the lap of Grace Revere Grosssaying, "There, take the darn thing; nowwhat are you going to do with the man?"(3,4)

This was the first state of the first editionidentified by the missigned Georgias (forGorgias), in the epigraph from Plato on thethird leaf. Three thousand copies were is-sued before the error was corrected in April1892.(4,5,6)It is a strange coincidence that thesame error was again found in the first issueof the tenth edition in 1925.(7)In the dedica-tion to be found in each edition of the text-book (excepting the 14th, 15th, and 16theditions), Osler paid tribute to his esteemedteachers, William Arthur Johnson, priest ofthe parish of Weston and headmaster ofTrinity College School; James Bovell of theToronto School of Medicine; and Robert

"'.

of pathology and a disease-oriented ap-proach. It was a wonder of precision andclarity, written with great style and repletewith literary and classical allusions. Fal-coner Madan, the Bodleian librarian, paidtribute to these attributes when he said thatOsler "succeeded in making a scientific trea-tise literature."(1) The many historical andliterary references that are found in the text-book bear witness to Osler's classical erudi-tion and his enthusiasm for the history ofmedicine. A prime example of this is foundin the section on obesity: "An extraordinaryphenomenon in excessively fat young per-sons is an uncontrollable desire to sleep -like the fat boy in Pickwick." His delightfulDickensian embellishment caused this clini-cal phenomenon to be known as the Pick-wickian syndrome. (9,10)

Osler's book was the subject of muchfond jocularity amongst his students, whosometime irreverently referred to it as "thegiven word". The Student's Guide to Osler, apoem in Guy's Hospital Gazette (1909) is aprime example of this; a spoof of Osler's useof many recondite names and references, asfound in the sixth edition.01,12,13)The poemends with the following humorous plea:

And now that you arewith us at OxfordYou've plenty of Leisure, no doubf,So make, I petition, another edition,And leave the Pathology out;Cut symptoms and treatment, and give usMore tales, repartees,epigrams,It would leave the whole screedmore amusingto read,And quite as much usefor exams!

The chief criticism of the textbook was itslack of therapeutic direction. Cast as a"therapeutic nihilist" by some critics, andmore charitably as a "therapeutic conserva-tive" by others, Osler candidly admittedthat medicine had little to offer in the wayof curative treatment of most disorders. (1,14)Osler strongly opposed the systems of ho-meopathy and polypharmacy that prevailedin his time. (15,16)Nevertheless, he advocatedand used those drugs that he consideredrational including nitroglycerine in angina

Dr. Richard L. Golden is the author of the lead article

in this issue of the Newsletter. Dr. Golden practicesinternal medicine on Long Island, and teaches at theState University of New York at Stony Brook. He is aCurator of the Osler Library, and has writtennumerous articles and books on Osler, including Oslerand Oriental Medicine and (with Dr. Charles Roland)Sir William Osler: An Annotated Bibliography withlllustrations. His "most recent accomplishment" (asthey say on the Dewar's advertisements) has been thediscovery of two hitherto unnoticed Russian editionsof The Principles and Practice of Medicine.

THE

PHAOTIGE OF MEDICINE

!>E.SIC''':D FOR TUE USE °''l%'CTITTONZns ASD 81TDKNTS O.F MEmOINE

,,"~ .<-

WILLIAM OSLER, M. D.

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The initial letter on this page is reproduced from Alexander Nesbitt (ed.) Decorative alphabets and initials, plate 35, Dover Publications, 1959.

NEW YORK

D APPU;TON ANn COMPANY

The title page of Osler's personal interleaved copy ofthe first edition (second printing) of The Principles and

Practice of M:dicine (B.O. 3544)

Palmer Howard, professor of medicine atMcGill. His personal copy of the secondstate was inscribed, "Private copy. Mayallthe curses of the good bishop Ernulphuslight on the borrower-and-not-returner orupon the stealer of this book."(5)

The book was an immediate best seller,and an astonishing 23,500 copies of the firstedition were sold in the period from 1892 to1895, providing Osler with a new-foundsense of financial security.(8) The Principlesand Pradice of Medicine was acclaimed as a"medical masterpiece" and provided up-to-date information derived from a solid base

pectoris, iron in anaemia and quinine inmalaria, among others.(17) He was also astaunch advocate of "G.O.M.," "God's ownmedicine," as he called morphine.

The Principles and Practice of Medicine soonsupplanted the entire field of competingmedical textbooks. The second edition sold

an additional 17,500 copies and by the timeof the sixth edition in 1905, 105,000 copieswere in print with number 100,000 given toOsler's son, Revere. (6,8,18)Osler's royaltiesamounted to $54,512, equivalent to over$1,000,000 in current terms.(17)Eventually itis estimated that nearly a half million copieswere produced. (19)

A truly remarkable event took place in1905 when Frederick T. Gates, a philan-thropic advisor to John T. Rockefeller, readthe second edition of the textbook in an ef-fort to acquaint himself with the currentstate of medicine. Gates wrote of this event:"... I read the whole book without skippingany of it. I speak of this not to commemoratemy industry or intelligence, but to testify toOsler's charm, for it is one of the very fewscientific books that are possessed of a highliterary quality I saw clearly from the worksof this thoroughly enlightened, able andhonest man, perhaps the foremost practitio-ner in the world, that medicine had - withthe few exceptions ... noted - no cures, andthat about all medicine up to 1897 coulddo was to suggest some measure of relief,how to nurse the sick, and to alleviate insome way the suffering."(20)

Gates communicated these ideas toRockefeller and initiated a series of events

that culminated in the founding of theRockefeller Institute of Medical Research in1901.(21)This, he wrote, "... had its origin inDr. Osler's perfectly frank disclosure of thevery narrow limitations of ascertained truthin medicine as it existed in 1897."(20)Thecreation of the Rockefeller Foundation fol-lowed in 1913 and its General EducationBoard gave $1,500,000 to Johns Hopkins tofund the establishment of the full-time sys-tem at the medical school. (22)The HarvardMedical School was the recipient of$1,000,000 from the Institute in 1902, a gift

ascribed by Gates as originating direc~from The Principles and Practiceof Medicine. ). The establishment at Johns Hopkins of the

School of Hygiene and Public Health in1918 and the Institute of the History ofMedicine in 1929 were further examples ofRockefeller beneficence. (24)

While the effect of Osler's book on medi-cal philanthropy and research cannot be over-estimated, it is in the teaching and practiceof generations of students and physiciansthat its ultimate value is to be found. It be-came the predominant textbook of medicinein the English speaking world, and beyondthrough its translations, and went throughsixteen editions from 1892 to 1947. The more

than one hundred editions, states, printings,variants and translations represent a bibli-ographic challenge that few today woulddare undertake. Cushing wrote that, "Some-one, someday, could well write a volumedevoted to a study of the successive editionsof this famous work which continues to ex-

ert an enormous influence on students ofmedicine ..."(8)

Translations of The Principles and Practiceof Medicine appeared throughout the worldbeginning with the Russian edition of 1905-1906. This was followed by the French edi-tion of 1908, and the German edition of1909. The three Chinese editions spannedthe years 1909-1934. Spanish translationsappeared in Barcelona in 1915 and in Bue-nos Aires in 1949. A Portuguese translationwas published in Rio de Janeiro in 1945. Inaddition there were British editions whichwere for the most part Appleton editionswith cancel titles and appropriate bind-ings. (6,25)The many translations of the text-book attest to the truly global impact ofOsler's textbook.

New editions of the textbook were gener-ally published at three to five year intervalswith the exception of the fifth and nintheditions. The fifth edition was published in1902 just one year after the appearance ofthe previous edition. This arose from Apple-ton having neglected to secure a copyrightin Great Britain which resulted in theprompt appearance of an unauthorizedfourth edition published by Young J. Pent-land in Edinburgh, at a substantially re-duced price, the so-called piratededition.(7,26)Still another British fourth edi-tion was published by Henry Kimpton inLondon, produced from American sheets. (6)Thus a unique situation evolved in 1901 withthree distinct American and British fourtheditions being marketed. Osler eloquentlywrote, "I regret the mistake which has dis-turbed the normal process of triennial par-turition, but the circumstances justify whatRabelais called 'the pretty perquisite of asuperfoetation'."(27) An unusual gap of eightyears separated the eighth edition of 1912and the ninth edition of 1920, the longestperiod between any successive major revi-sions. This undoubtedly occurred as a resultof preoccupation with the War, the death ofRevere, and the additional burden of Os-ler's declining health.

The seventh edition (1909)of the textbook,the last that Osler did alone, is sometimesconsidered to be the pinnacle of the series,encompassing the many major advancesthat had occurred in the seventeen years ofpublication. Thomas McCrae, Osler's formerresident and at that time professor of Medi-cine at Jefferson Medical College, becameco-author in the eighth and the posthumousninth edition. He carried on as the soleauthor through the twelfth edition (1935)after which Henry A. Christian of HarvardUniversity assumed the task through the six-teenth and final edition.(6) When The Princi-

ples and Practice of Medicine ceasedpublication in 1947 it had illuminated anextraordinary fifty-five year epoch of medi-cine. The demise of the textbook no doubt

resulted from declining sales, increasedpopularity of multi-authored textbooks,newer stars such as Cecil, and the impercep-tible loss of Osler's input. Osler was notunaware of the possibility of some of thesefactors when he wrote, "Naturally I have astrong sentiment about the book, but I know

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quite well that the life and success of a workdepends on the life of a man ..." He soughtunsuccessfully for many years to transfereditorial control in such a manner as tomake the book a Johns Hopkins textbook ofmedicine. (28)

It remained for Dr. A. McGehee Harveyand his colleagues to bring fulfillment toOsler's vision of a Johns Hopkins textbookof medicine. In 1968, twenty-one years afterthe cessation of publication, the seventeenthedition of The Principles and Practice of Medi-cine was published by Appleton-Century-Crofts. This was a new, multi-authoredwork from the Johns Hopkins faculty, em-ploying a patient-oriented concept and pre-serving the name and numeration of theoriginal series.(29) Quadrenniel revisionshave been published, the last of which wasthe twenty-second edition in 1988. Al-though not a revision of Osler's book, itcame from an institution rich in the tradi-tion of Osler and dedicated to the preserva-tion of his principles and ideals, thusretaining the essence of Osler and his mag-num opus.

At its centennial, Osler's Principles andPractice of Medicine commands not only ourprofound respect and admiration as a medi-cal book of inestimable value to generationsof physicians worldwide and as a workwhose influence on research and philan-thropy is unprecedented, but gives us agreater insight into Osler, the man, as ameans of better understanding his erudi-tion, philosophy, humor and ethics, as wellas his truly extraordinary humanism. In hisown moving words, "Books are ilie witnessesof the spirit - of the thoughts and hopes anddeeds of all sorts and conditions of men."(30)

References1. Cuslrlng, H: The Life of Sir William Osler. Oxford:

Oarendon Press, 1925. Vol. I, 340-341.

2. Harvey AM, and McKusick VA: Osler's TextbookRevisited. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967,1-1.

3. Osler W: BibliothecaOsleriana. Montreal and Lon-

don: McCill-Queen's University Press, 1969, #3543.4. Cuslrlng: op.cit., Vol I, 357-358.5. Osler: op.cit., #3544.6. Colden RL and Roland CC: Sir William Osler. An

Annotated Bibliography with Rlustrations. San Francisco:Norman Publislrlng, 1988, 136-148.

7. MacDennot HE: Notes on the early editions ofOsler's Textbook of Medicine. Ann. Med. Hist. n.s., 6:224-240, 1934.

8. Cuslrlng: op.cit., Vol. I, 422, 473.9. Osler W: T11ePrinciples and Practice of Medicine. Ed.

6, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1905, 431.10. Burwell CS et al: Extreme obesity associated with

alveolvar hypoventilation - A Pickwickian Syndmme.Am. J. Med., 21: 811-818, 1956.

11. Osler W: op. cit., #3587.12. "5. 5." (Brookhouse HO): The student's guide to

Osler. Guy's Hosp. Gaz., 23: 420, 1909.13. LeRoy EC, Wallis F, Sawyer WA: A student's ode

to Osler's text republished with notes. Can. Bull. Med.Hist., 6: 57-66, 1989.

14. Cushing: op.cit., Vol. I, 359, 391.15. Osler W: The treatment of disease. Canada Lancet,

42: 899-912, 1908-09.

16. Osler W: Medicine. In: The Progess of the CEntury.New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1902, 173-214.

17. Harrell GT: Osler's Practice. Bull. Hist. Med., 47:545-567, 1973.

18. Cushing: op.cit., Vol. n, 21.

19. Robb-Smith AlIT: The story behind the Oslerplaque. Ox. Med. Sch. Gaz. (amended reprint). xxvili (3):18-20,1988; JOdx(1): 17-19, (2): 18-20, 1989.

20. Cushing: op.cit., Vo!. I, 454-456.21. Cushing: op.cit., Vo!.!, 550-551; Vol. n, 245.22. Cushing: op.cit., Vo!. II, 383.23. Cushing: op.cit., Vo!.!, 573-574.24. Bernheim BM: The Story ofJohns Hopkins. New York

and Toronto, Whittlesey House, 1948, 118, 170-176.25. Golden RL: A note on the Russian translations of

William Osler's textbook. J. Hist. Med. & Allied Sci., 45:490-493, 1990.

26. Osler W: BibliothecaOsleriana. Montreal and Lon-

don: McGill-Queens University Press, 1969, #3548, #3549.27. Osler W: An Explanation. Lancet, i, 1058, 1903.28. Cushing: op.cit., Vo!. n, 209.29. Lambert RH: Osler and his publishers. Trans. &

Studies Col/. Phys. Phila., ser. 5, vol. 5, no. 3: 177-190, 1983.30. Osler W: lncunabla Medica. London: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1923, 2.

Kircher's Museum Displayed

Historians of art and architecture, of sci-ence and medicine, of Baroque culture, Jes-uit scholarship, and even of Canadianaboriginal peoples will all find something ofinterest in an important historic volume re-cently acquired for the Osler libraI)'. Thebook in question is the illustrated catalogueof the museum of natural histoI)', antiq-uities, and ethnographic artifacts assembledby the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher(1602-1680), and housed in the Society's Ro-man college. Published in Rome in 1709 byKircher's successor, Filippo Buonanni, thecatalogue's full title is Musaeum Kircheria-num siue Musaeum a P. Athanasio Kirchero in

Collegio Romano Societatis Jesu iam pridem de-scriptum nuper restitutum auctum descriptumet iconibus t1lustratum. Its 522 folio pages in-clude 172 engraved plates illustrating thecontents of this quintessential BaroqueWunderkammer.

Athanasius Kircher was one of the best-known figures in the scholarly world of hisdcy, with an enormous, if controversial,reputation as a man of learning. He num-bered savants like Fabry de Pieresc andGassendi among his friends, and was readappreciatively by Leibniz. Most ofKircher's life was passed in the Jesuit Col-lege in Rome, where he composed a prodi-gious number of books on a wide variety ofsubjects; many of his works are representedin the Osler Library.

Kircher's erudition was not ordered by alogical taxonomy of knowledge or a hierar-chy of the sciences; rather, it revolvedaround certain motifs. One of his major ob-sessions was origins: the origin of the humanrace (discussed in his treatise on the Ark ofNoah), the origin of language (the burden ofhis Turris Babel), the origin of knowledge(for which he felt the records of ancientEgypt and China provided the most signifi-cant clues), the subterranean sources of fireand water, and even the origin of thedreaded plague (Kircher was the first tosuggest that infectious diseases were causedby "germs"). Another central theme wasthat of attradion: the attraction exercised bythe magnet became an analogy for the pro-jection of light and sound, for the operationof the laws of gravity, and even for political

Native costume from New France. An illustrationfrom Buonanni's Musaeum Kircherianum ... (1709)

stability. For Kircher, the universe was knittogether by a kind of metaphysical magnet-ism which expressed itself in correspondencesbetween the microcosm and the macro-cosm, the visible and invisible worlds. Thistheme lead logically to an interest in marvels,phenomena whose causes were obscure butultimately understandable, like the "germs"of the plague. Men, too, could constructtheir own marvels in the form of machines:

Kircher was particularly interested in auto-mata, in "computers", and in devices whichcould project sound and images.

Kircher took over the collection assem-bled at the College by Alfonso Donnino, andshaped it along the lines suggested by hisdistinctive brand of inte]]ectual curiosity.He persuaded his fellow Jesuits who wereserving as missionaries in Asia or theAmericas to send him artifacts, inscriptions,and pictures. He himself collected Egyptianantiquities and hieroglyphic inscriptions, aswe]] as instruments and machines; indeedthe only work about the Museum issued inKircher's lifetime, Romani Collegii SocietatisJesu Museum Celeberrimum..., published inAmsterdam in 1678 (and also to be found inthe Osler Library) concentrates exclusive onEgyptology and mechanical devices. But asBuonanni's catalogue reveals, the range ofKircher's museum was far more extensive.It was organized into 12 classes:1. Cult statues and sacrificial instruments.2 Ex-votos and amulets.3. Funerary art and inscriptions.4. Funerary lamps.5. Items of ancient craftsmanship.6. Fossils and other mineral substances"upon which Nature has impressed a dis-tinctive image".7. Objects of ethnographic or natural interestbrought back by trave]]ers.8. Marine plants and fruits; marine and land

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animals (mostly exotic, unusual, deformedor monstrous examples).9. Machines such as mechanical models fordemonstrating principles of physics, hy-draulic toys, musical automata, and devicesfor transmitting sounds and pictures.10. Paintings, statues and medals.11. Microscopes and curiosities seen underthe microscope.12 Shells.

Within class 7 are found a number ofitems sent to Kircher by Jesuit missionariesin New France, including two Huron cos-tumes (one of which is illustrated here), anda beaded belt, for which the following de-scription is provided:

Another belt two inches wide from NewFrance, or the realm of Canada in America. Thesaid Huron people fashioned it with marvellouscraftsmanship from minute fragments of thebones of various birds, uniform in size andsmaller than the shaft of a goose-feather.Firstthey preparethese fragments by dying them dif-ferent colours. Then they select the ones theymznt, and string them together with great skillto depict f1owers, letters, birds and plants; thespecimen in the Museum is made only fromblack and white bones. I have seen another, halfa palm's breadth wide, in which can be read thewords of the angelic salutation: "Ave Maria gra-tia plena"; it was sent as a gift by the faithfulChristians of this region to the church of theBlessed Virgin at l.meto. (p. 225)

It is Kircher's influence on the visual

imagination of his age which intrigues Pro-fessor Alberto Perez-Gomez, director ofMcGill's graduate programme in architec-tural theory and history. Professor Perez-Gomez has been using the Osler Library'sKircher co]]ection for his seminar for a num-ber of years, and was very enthusiasticabout the acquisition of the Buonanni cata-logue. He also teaches a similar seminar atHarvard, whose resources for Kircher stud-ies, he says, are inferior to those of McGill.

No doubt specialists in various fields arebound to find something of relevance inKircher's museum, but it is really as a col-lection that its historical significance mustbe assessed. The Museum was an obligatoryitem on the itinerary of every gentlemanvisiting Rome on the Grand Tour, and it at-tracted scholars and scientists from acrossEurope; the inventory of its co]]ections isreally a conspectus of material resources forlearning in the Baroque age.

The Osler Library and the Director of li-braries, who jointly financed the acquisitionof this important volume, are delighted tohave been able to sieze the opportunity ofenhancing a co]]ection of such significantinterdisciplinary potential. The Library'sportion of the purchase price was coveredby a generous donation from Dr. JohnMcGovern, a Curator and long-time friendof the Osler Library. We are grateful for theopportunity to thank Dr. McGovern publi-cally for helping us to acquire this book.

Faith Wallis

Adopt An Osler Library Book:A Progress Report

The response to our appeal, launched inthe October 1991 Newsletter, to "adopt anOsler Library book" has been very gratify-ing. As of January 1992, eight batteredbooks have been adopted by friends of theLibrary, and are well on their way to recu-peration. Our thanks go out to:

- Dr. Richard Creuss, Dean of the Facultyof Medicine and Chairman of the Board ofCurators of the Osler Library, who hasadopted two volumes: Daniel Defoe's Jour-nal of the Plague Year and Andreas Vesalius'Epistola, rationem modumque propinandiradicis Chynae decocti...;

- Dr. William Feindel of the MontrealNeurological Institute, who has funded therestoration of Willis' Cerebrianatome;

- Mrs Eve Osler Hampson, a Curator ofthe Osler Library, who adopted Descartes'Discours de la methode;

- Dr. H. Rocke Robertson, a Curator ofthe Libraty, for taking on Robert Boyle, Ex-periments and Considerations Touching Col-ours;

- Dr. Charles Roland, Hannah Professorof the History of Medicine at McMaster Uni-versity, who has befriended Black's Experi-ments upon Milgnesia Alba...;

- Dr. Elton D. Kerr of Kingsport, Tennes-see, who has come to the rescue of our lu-minous Lumen animae;

- Mr. Eric de Bellaigue of London Eng-land, who has adopted Erasmus' De recta ...pronuntiatione.

Some readers of the Newsletter have con-tacted us to express surprise at the high costof some of the restorations proposed. Itseems that many were under the impressionthat the books require merely routine con-servation. This is not the case at all. All fiftybooks were selected precisely because theyneed very extensive and costly overhauls,almost always involving washing the bookpage by page, deacidification etc. The lim-ited space available in the adoption bro-chure did not permit an extensivedescription of the condition of each volume,or a breakdown of the costs involved in eachprocedure. However a detailed look at whatis involved in repairing Nathaniel Hodges'Loimologia might clarify the situation:

DisbindWash

DeacidifyResizeRepair tearsResewRebind in calfLeather labelTaTALOptional boxTaTAL

$50$150$210$150

$50$120$119$16

$815$150$965

As this estimate was prepared almost twoyears ago, we have added 10% to cover in-flation, for a total price of $1062.

A word is perhaps in order about the re-storer we have engaged for this work. MrsTerry Remple-Mroz has many years of expe-rience, first as a paper restorer and lately inbook restoration. She teaches conservation

901122-4'C>SL

Thomas Willis's Cerebrianatom£ before and after restoration. Photography courtesy of Terry Mroz.

and restoration in the Graduate School ofLibrary and Information Studies at McGillUniversity, and has undertaken numerousrestoration projects for academic libraries inthis region, including the cleaning and re-pair of a large number of volumes damagedin a flood in the Rare Books Department ofMcGill's McLennan LibraI)'. Her handiworkis on display in the accompanying illustra-tion, showing Willis' Cerebrianatome beforeand after surgety.

In some cases, it might appear that thecost of restoring the book equals or evenexceeds the cost of purchasing another cofY'However, it is doubtful that Osler's copy ofany of our adoptable books could be ac-quired for much less than the restorationprice. The mandate of the Library is to carefor Osler's books and make them accessible:refurbishing these volumes is a hommage tothe man who collected them as much as tothe contents of the books themselves. We are

deeply grateful to the friends of the Librarywho have agreed to adopt our books, andhope that others will find similar "godpar-ents" in the near future. Copies of the adop-tion prospectus are available from theLibrary.

Faith Wallis

The Osler Library Fax NumberThe Osler Library now has its own fax.

The number is (514) 398-5747.

Editorial Committee for the Newsletter:Faith Wallis, Osler Librarian and Editor;Edward H. Bensley,Honorary Osler Librar-ian and Consulting Editor; Wayne LeBel,Assistant History of Medicine Librarianand Assistant Editor; Lily Szczygiel,Editorial Assistant.

Legal Deposit 1/1992 ISSN 0085-4557

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