The Care and Exhibition of Medical History Museum Objects by Patsy A. GerstnerReview by: Doris LeckieIsis, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Jun., 1975), p. 271Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/229431 .

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BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 66 * 2 * 232 (1975) 271

by Karl Stack of Mainz; Winau has given synopses of the lives of the physicians to Frederick William the Elector of Branden- burg; and Terhalle has considered the plan of Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann for a Collegium Medicum at Mainz. These essays break valuable new ground on a period which has received too little attention from medical historians. Compared with these studies the contributions to this volume on more recent subjects are perhaps less im- pressive, but even these are not without points of interest.

CHARLES WEBSTER

Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine University of Oxford

Oxford, OX] 3QL England

Patsy A. Gerstner. The Care and Exhibition of Medical History Museum Objects. (Health Sciences Information Series, Vol. I, No. 6.) ix + 47 pp., bibl. Cleveland: Cleveland Health Sciences Library, 1974. $1.75.

If the title of this handbook were not so ambitious, we would not be quite so disappointed. Patsy A. Gerstner has given us a general guide to matters to be consid- ered by the beginner who has been charged with the care, cataloguing, and exhibiting of medical objects, or with any one of these. The procedures given for cataloguing are well thought out and workable, although documentation does not receive the em- phasis it should. The section on exhibiting, including a description of the Valentine Mott exhibit created for the New York Academy of Medicine, provides the poten- tial exhibitor with an excellent example of what is to be considered in "building" an exhibit. The section on the care of museum objects is particularly weak. I would caution those who take to washing their objects, with the exception of glass, without con- sulting professionals.

A good beginning bibliography on a wide variety of instruments is provided. However, the inclusion of some respected general histories of medicine and of partic- ular specialties would have enhanced this bibliography by providing the cataloguer or exhibitor with some basic sources for better understanding the objects, the peo-

ple who devised and used them, and their place in time.

DORIs LECKIE

Division of Medical Sciences Museum of History and Technology

Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560

* TECHNOLOGY

Edwin T. Layton, Jr. (Editor). Technology and Social Change in America. (Interpreta- tions of American History.) vii + 181 pp., selective bibl. New York: Harper and Row, 1973.

This is an anthology of recent historical articles nicely complementing Carroll W Pursell's Readings in Technology and Ameri- can Life (1969), a collection of primary sources. Most of Edwin T. Layton's selec- tions are given without their original an- notations. The brief bibliography is very well done, as are the editor's introductory comments. Absent are any articles on pro- fessional and vocational education, on in- dustrial research laboratories, and on tech- nology in the military. Nevertheless, a use- ful collection for students.

NATHAN REINGOLD

Joseph Henry Papers Smithsonian Institution

Washington, D.C. 20560

Carl Mitcham; Robert Mackey. Bibliog- raphy of the Philosophy of Technology. xvii + 205 pp. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1973. $7.95.

Technology and Culture, the quarterly journal of the Society for the History of Technology, has cultivated bibliography from its start. It was here, in serial form (1962-1965), that Eugene S. Ferguson's magisterial Bibliography of the History of Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1968) was first published, and it is here that every year one finds a comprehensive biblio- graphic survey of current literature in the same field. Consistent with such traditions,

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