Finding an Author Whose Last Name Begins with X

According to the automatic tabulator on the running head of the website, there were 6754 authors in the database as of August 8, 2015, including many for every letter of the alphabet except X. No authors in the bibliography had last names beginning with that letter. Would it be possible to fill this gap?

I thought about it occasionally, but could not think of a good way to approach the problem. Today, in an exchange of emails I mentioned this issue to my friend and colleague Fritz-Dieter Söhn. Fritz had the excellent idea of checking Hirsch's Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte aller Zeiten und Völker (See entry No. 6716). In that comprehensive listing of physicians' names four candidates turned up: three ancient Greek physicians: Xenokrates, Xenkritos, and Xenophon, but virtually nothing survived of whatever these physicians might have written. Thus they could not be included. The fourth name that turned up was that of Francisco Ximénez, a friar and nurse at the Convent of San Domingo de Mexico. Ximénez edited and expanded Francisco Hernández's Quatro libros. De la naturaleza y virudes de las plantas, y animales que estan receuidos en el vso de medicina en la Nueua España for publication in Mexico City in 1615. (See entry No. 1820.1). Because Ximénez's name appeared on the title page of the Hernandez book as editor and co-author of portions of the work, it was appropriate to add Ximenez to the author list of the bibliography, Thank you, Fritz, for finding the first X-name for the author database!

Adding Sexuality / Sexology

As one might expect in a bibliography that originated in 1912, there was little or nothing about sexuality or sexology in the bibliography, even in the 5th edition of 1991. There were only a very few works: Freud (1905) Havelock Ellis (1900-1928),  Kraft-Ebing (1886), Forel (1905). These were included under Psychology. If you count prostitution under sexology there were also Parent-Duchâtelet (1836) and Henriques (1961-68) and the 20th century English translation, rather than the original French edition, of Lacroix (1851-53). These were indexed under Public Health. Sex appeared in the subject index chiefly with respect to genetics and the science of reproduction. Taking a more up to date, less inhibited approach, I decided to add the subjects Sexuality / Sexology to the subject index, and to work toward improving coverage in this area. As of today there are 13 entries under the main subject and 6 under "History of".

Medical Papyri and Ethnobotany

The two topics--medical papyri and ethnobotany--have very little in common, except that they are areas in which I decided to revise and expand the bibliography. In reviewing the citations for medical papyri I noticed that the selections tended to be early translations rather than the first printing of the papyrus text. This I improved when necessary. As there are so few medical papyri the task of revising those entries was not arduous. I also added "Medical Papyri" to the subject index under Ancient Medicine.

On the other hand, the history of native plants used as medicine by indigenous peoples is a topic that has long interested me, especially as these plants are sometimes the origin of standard drugs. This is a large subject, and it is also a topic which I tried to improve when I worked on it 25 years ago; it is still unsatisfactory in this area. As part of a project to build up references on Native Americans and Medicine (another favorite subject of mine) I have also added Ethnobotany as a topic in the subject index under Botany, and am in the process of improving the coverage in that general area. The coverage in ethnobotany should, of course, be wide-ranging geographically and not limited to "America."

Filling a Major Gap in the 1991 Fifth Edition: HIV/AIDS

When I prepared the last edition of this bibliography for publication in book form during the late 1980s HIV/AIDS was very much in the news but I didn't have a good way of gaining historical perspective on it. Twenty-five years later it was easier to start filling this gap, beginning with the first description of the disease by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and the isolation of the virus by Luc Montagnier, and the proof that the same virus caused HIV by Robert Gallo. From the secondary source standpoint I added Mirko Grmek's history of AIDS published in English in 1990, and Randy Shilts's And the Band Played On. I vaguely recall being aware of the publication of Grmek's history toward the end of my editorial process for the book, and by that time it seemed more important to get the 5th edition published rather than to continue with additions. Entries on this topic appear under Infectious Disease /  HIV/AIDS in the subject index.

Correcting and Improving all the 15th Century Citations

One of the more interesting new features available in the electronic version of the bibliography is the ability to study items by the years in which they were published. From this we learn that currently there are 76 entries in the bibliography published in print between 1456 and 1500. As I reviewed some of those entries I realized that numerous errors had crept in over the century during which the bibliography evolved, and I decided to review and correct all of the 15th century entries. This process I completed today.

The convenient standard reference work that I used is the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) published by the British Library. This provides searchable descriptions of incunabula together with references to more detailed bibliographical studies of each title. My process was to compare the G-M entry with cataloguing provided by the ISTC, and typically to follow the title and author record of the ISTC. However in certain instances, when a digital facsimile was available, I would transliterate the title directly from the facsimile. In other instances, if I learned that there was an earlier edition than the one previously cited in G-M, I cited the earlier edition. Whenever I could locate the edition in the ISTC, and I believe that this was in all except one instance, I added the ISTC entry number to the annotation. Users will notice that many of the 15th century citations in the bibliography are now significantly revised and improved, in both their bibliographical citations and explanatory notes, and the notes often include links to digital facsimiles.

HistoryofMedicine.com is also Garrison-Morton.com

Over twenty years ago I acquired HistoryofMedicine.com along with HistoryofScience.com, and a few other domain names. When the opportunity to bring "Garrison-Morton" to the Internet occurred it seemed logical use the HistoryofMedicine.com domain for that purpose.  However, since the "Garrison-Morton" designation is so deeply entrenched in bibliographical citations, after the new site went online I also acquired "Garrison-Morton.com." Traditionalists may now reach HistoryofMedicine.com by going to Garrison-Morton.com.

Adding Two Very Rare Works in Ophthalmology as a Result of Antiquarian Bookselling Experience

In my over five decades in the antiquarian book trade I have handled many extraordinary and remarkable items, some of which are of bibliographical interest. In June my old friend and colleague Rick Watson of London sent me descriptions of the two extremely rare early sixteenth century works in ophthalmology which we had owned in partnership decades ago. These he had recently repurchased.  I had forgotten all about them, but when I read their description I realized that these belong in the medical bibliography; they are now entries 6932 and 6933.