HistoryofMedicineandBiology.com Passes the 10,000 Entry Milestone

Yesterday, December 27, 2016, I noticed that the database passed the 10,000 entry milestone. It seemed fitting to make an entry for this database, itself, as entry number 10,000, indexed under the new category of "Electronic Resources." Compared to the limited amount of work that I could do in preparing the 5th printed edition (1991) and my lack of control over that finished book, working on this electronic version is a dream. The website was programmed according to my specifications, and it gives me the chance to make virtually unlimited changes, corrections and modifications according to the irregular way that I fit in working on this project in betwixt and between other things. Besides this, the ability to link to digital facsimiles online not only increases the usefulness of the database but also gives me the opportunity to check entries for accuracy and content. This is resulting in many, many corrections and improvements to older entries in the database. Also, search engines such as Google allow me to identify and distinguish between various works by authors, among many other things. Needless to say, the excitement I find in building and improving this database motivates me to pursue this project.

Renaming the Masthead HistoryofMedicineandBiology.com

It has been about a year and a half since the former printed book version of the annotated bibliography appeared in its interactive form online. According to the automatic tabulation, as of this date (October 6, 2016) 1045 entries have either been significantly revised from the last printed edition or are entirely new. Besides the many significant revisions and additions I have corrected innumerable small mistakes, which still turn up in a work of this size. The bibliography is presently indexed to 628 subjects.

From its beginning by Fielding H. Garrison early in the twentieth century this bibliography included subjects like evolution and biology as well as medicine, and as I have added new material to most of the subject areas I have found myself expanding subjects such as evolution, zoology, and natural history. To draw attention to the biological aspects along with the medical aspects we have renamed the masthead HistoryofMedicineandBiology.com.

The Publisher Whose Middle Initial Was Meaningless

In adding new entry 7186 today,  the first handbook on the female sex hormone,  published in Springfield, Illinois by Charles C Thomas in 1929,  I was reminded of a detail that I once had explained to me years ago: that the C between Charles and Thomas was added by Thomas just for "looks", and that the letter was not an abbreviation for a longer name. Therefore, Thomas never added a period after his middle "C". This quirky nit-picky detail is the kind of thing that creates all sorts of nuisance problems for a bibliographer.

Knowing that Thomas was Harvey Cushing's publisher, and that Thomas also published many notable books on medical history,  I realized that there would be many entries published by him in the bibliography. I also suspected that the story of Thomas's meaningless "C" had eluded Leslie T. Morton in the first four editions of the bibliography, and I also seemed to remember that I probably followed Morton's way of recording Thomas's name as publisher when I edited the fifth edition. Thus it seemed likely that there would be errors to correct regarding the meaningless "C". But when I searched under "Charles C. Thomas" I found only one entry to correct, and, of course, I took care of that. Later in the day I decided to address the problem once again, this time checking under Thomas's distinctive publishing location, Springfield. This brought up 54 entries, all of which presented the incorrect version of Thomas's meaningless "C".  Morton, it turned out,  always recorded Thomas's name as publisher as "C. C. Thomas." This, of course, makes perfect sense if the "C" is an abbreviation, but it makes little sense if you are not supposed to add a period after the second "C". Solution: spell out "Charles C Thomas" whenever his name is mentioned in the bibliography. 54 entries later this error was corrected, and while I was at it I made other minor revisions to some of the 54 entries as I reread them.

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.