INTRODUCTION 

THE COLLECTING OF A LIBRARY 

A COUNTRY parson's house in Canada in the 'fifties or 'sixties had rarely a literary atmosphere. My father's library, of about 1,500 volumes, was chiefly theological - the usual commentaries, Scott, Henry, and others, with Bingham, Pearson, and the common run of the English divines. There were a few old books, a Breeches Bible, and an early Stow's Chronicle. Having been at sea, he was fond of books of travel, of Layard, of Rawlinson, of Livingstone. Sunday reading is remembered as a trial. Even now to see a person with a novel on Sunday gives a reflex shock-a reminiscence of early training! George Borrow was a delight. As a missionary his books could not be hurtful, even on Sunday, and 'The Bible in Spain') ' Gipsies in Spain ', and even ' Lavengro ' were not taboo. 

No little pride was taken in the books of my father's eldest brother, Edward, a surgeon in Truro, whose 'Life of Exmouth', 'Church and King', and volume of poems seemed to confer a literary flavour on the family; and at church what a pleasure to see his name opposite certain well-known hymns! Later, to know that monographs by him had appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society was an additional source of pride. 

At Weston, with the Warden and Founder of Trinity College School, the Rev. W. A. Johnson, came the first opportunity to see scientific books-elementary manuals of geology, botany, and microscopy. Griffith's Micrographic Dictionary, Ehrenberg's Infusoria, Smith on Diatoms, Ralfs on Desmids, Carpenter and Beale on the Microscope, introduced us to a book world very different from Arnold and Anthon and Todhunter. Mr. Johnson was a Canadian White of Selborne, and knew the ways and works of nature. A good field botanist, a practical palaeontologist, an ardent microscopist, he had a rare gift for imparting knowledge and inspiring enthusiasm. One of his books is kept, Beale's ' How to work with the Microscope' (no. 1969), in grateful memory of happy school days. 

The year at Trinity College, Toronto (1867-8), put me on the right track. To Weston Dr. Bovell of Toronto had been a frequent visitor, as his friend the Warden had an enviable technique with the microscope. He would arrive on Saturday with materials for section, or with small animals for injection. To be interested was enough to have one's help enlisted, if only in clearing up the shocking mess, stained with carmine, that was left on the study table. Arthur J. Johnson, the Warden's son, had already begun the study of medicine, and it became our custom to spend our Saturdays with Dr. Bovell, cutting sections with Valentine's knife, grinding bones or teeth for microscopic slides, or keeping the aquaria stocked with pond material likely to contain good specimens of algae, amoebae, &c. In the late afternoon Dr. Bovell would often take me to his lecture at the Toronto School of Medicine. In this congenial atmosphere what wonder that Euripides, Aeschylus, Livy, and Horace were dull; conic sections and trigonometry became an abomination, and Pearson and Hooker a delusion. In October 1868 I entered the Toronto School of Medicine. 

It has been remarked that for a young man the privilege of browsing in a large and varied library is the best introduction to a general education, My opportunity came in the winter of 1869-70. Having sent his family to the West Indies, Dr. Bovell took consulting rooms in Spadina Avenue, not far away from his daughter, Mrs. Barwick, with whom he lived. He gave me a bedroom in his house, and my duties were to help him keep appointments-an impossible job!- and to cut sections and prepare specimens. Having catholic and extravagant tastes, he had filled the rooms with a choice and varied selection of books. After a review of the work of the day came the long evening for browsing, and that winter gave me a good first-hand acquaintance with the original works of many of the great masters. After fifty years the position in those rooms of special books is fixed in my mind: Morton's 'Crania Americana', Annesley's 'Diseases of India' with the fine plates, the three volumes of Bright, the big folios of Dana, the monographs of Agassiz. Dr. Bovell had a passion for the great physician-naturalists, and it was difficult for him to give a lecture without a reference to John Hunter. The diet was too rich and varied, and contributed possibly to the development of my somewhat 'splintery' and illogical mind; but the experience was valuable and aroused an enduring interest in books. In such a decade of mental tumult as the 'sixties really devout students, of whom Dr. Bovell was one, were sore let and hindered, not to say bewildered, in attempts to reconcile Genesis and Geology. It seems hardly credible, but I heard a long debate on Philip Henry Gosse's (of, to me, blessed memory) 'Omphalos, an Attempt to untie the Geological Knot'. A dear old parson, Canon Reade, stoutly maintained the possibility of the truth of Gosse's view that the strata and the fossils had been created by the Almighty to test our faith! A few years ago, reading Edmund Gosse's 'Father and Son', which appeared anonymously, the mention of this extraordinary 'Omphalos' work revealed the identity, and, alas! to my intense regret, the personality of the father as Philip Henry Gosse. 

Of this mental struggle the students reaped the benefit, for Dr. Bovell was much more likely to lecture on what was in his mind than on the schedule, and a new monograph on Darwin or a recent controversial pamphlet would occupy the allotted hour. One corner of the library was avoided. With an extraordinary affection for mental and moral philosophy, he had collected the works of Locke and Berkeley, Kant and Hegel, Spinoza and Descartes, as well as those of the moderns. He would joke upon the impossibility of getting me to read any of the works of these men, but at Trinity, in 1867-8, I attended the lectures or natural theology, and he really did get us interested in Cousin and Jouffroy and others of the French school. Three years of association with Dr. Bovell were most helpful. Books and the Man! The best the human mind has afforded was on his shelves, and in him all that one could desire in a teacher, a clear head and a loving heart. Infected with the Aesculapian spirit, he made me realize the truth of those memorable words in the Hippocratic oath, ' I will honour as my father the man who teaches me the Art'. 

The first book bought was the Globe Shakespeare, the second the 1862 edition Boston, of the 'Religio Medici' [no. 4446], both of which were close companions of my student days. The Shakespeare was stolen, and the curses of Bishop Ernulphus have often been invoked on the son of Belial who took it; the Browne, bought in 1867, is the father of my Browne collection. In it is a touching association, as in this volume only, in this section of the library, is found the book-plate of my boy, his own design and etching. He claimed it for his lifetime, promising that it should join the collection at his death. With the Brownes is 'Varia: Readings from Rare Books' by Friswell (given me by my eldest brother), the article in which introduced me, I think, to the ' Religio '. 

In 1870 my kind preceptor joined his family in the West Indies, and urged me to go to Montreal for better clinical opportunities. He sent word to Arthur Johnson and me to take a selection of books from his library, but it was sold before we had the opportunity. A few of his books, which he had lent me, have been carefully kept. The Niemeyer (English translation), Simon's Pathology, Chambers's ' Renewal of Life ', can still be read with pleasure. 

The long vacations were periods of profitable study, with a borrowed microscope, and books from Mr. Johnson and Dr. Bovell. Lyell's 'Principles of Geology', Darwin's 'Voyage' and the 'Origin' were read, and in collecting diatoms, desmids, algae, and fresh-water polyzoa the available literature on these subjects was studied. My first appearance in print was in connexion with the finding of diatoms, &c., in a frozen spring on the road between Dundas and Hamilton; and it is amusing to note, even at the very start of my ink-pot career, a fondness for tags of quotations, this one from Horace, in those days a familiar friend (see no. 3535). 

The summer of 1871, spent at Montreal, brought me into almost filial relations with Dr. Palmer Howard, whose library was at my disposal. Wilks's 'Pathological Anatomy' was my handbook, and the post-mortems were worked out from its pages. The old system prevailed of writing a thesis for the degree, a most perfunctory and evil habit as then carried out, but it served me in good stead. Mine was a report, with the specimens, on fifty post-mortems. So profuse in his praises was Dr. Fraser, the Professor of the Institutes of Medicine, who had read the thesis, that the Faculty voted me a special prize of books, all of which remain in the library for the sake of auld lang syne. One of them, Klein and Sanderson's 'Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory', became a stand-by; and towards the end of 1873, in the chemical laboratory of the Pathologisches Institut, Berlin, the patient soul of the good Salkowski was sorely tried in helping me to work through Lauder Brunton's section on physiological chemistry. Taking with me to London an order for the books on S. and J. Nock, for years, indeed from the foundation of the school, the Faculty's agents, I proceeded to Hart Street, Bloomsbury. The shop was an indescribable clutter of books, and the brothers Nock, far advanced in years, were weird and desiccated specimens of humanity. They had a keen interest in the Faculty, and remembered Howard, Wright, and MacCallum when they were students in London in 1849. During the winter session [1872-3] I lived with the much-loved Arthur Browne, a fellow student, afterwards Professor of Obstetrics at McGill, a keen lover of English literature, to whom I owe my introduction to Coleridge and Lamb. 

Many books were used but few bought in the two years spent in Europe. The students' library at University College was very good, and for the special work in the physiological laboratory Professor Burdon Sanderson or Mr. (now Sir Edward) Schafer got the monographs and works of reference. Luther Holden introduced me to the College of Surgeons' library, and Arthur Durham to the library of the Medico-Chirurgical Society. One book (no. 2429) is an interesting souvenir of this period and of a notable man. Professor Sharpey had resigned the previous year but was much about the laboratory, and often came to my desk in a friendly way to see the progress of my blood studies. One evening he asked me to dinner; Kölliker, Allen Thomson and Dohrn were there. When saying good-bye he gave me Davy's 'Researches' with an autograph inscription. There were cobwebs in my pockets in Berlin and Vienna, and only the most necessary text-books were bought. On leaving Vienna I could not resist Billroth's 'Coccobacteria septica' (no. 2039), an expensive volume with beautiful plates, a curious pre-Kochian attempt to associate bacteria with disease, and now of value only as illustrating the futility of  brains without technique.

On my return to Canada in July 1874 a berth was waiting, the lectureship on the Institutes of Medicine, which necessitated an immediate course of predatory reading in preparation for the delivery of 100 lectures! 

The McGill library, founded by Dr. Holmes, the first dean, had many old books, and a pretty complete file of the English journals, with a few French, such as the Archives génerales de Médecine, but no recent German periodicals. A Book and Journal Club, started about 1876, lasted for a few years and helped with new books and foreign journals. Palmer Howard was the only free buyer in Montreal, and from him one could always get the French monographs and journals. Complete sets of Virchow's Archiv, the Deutsches Archiv für klinische Medicin, the Centralblatt für die medicinischen Wissenschaften, Wagner's Archiv, and Max Schultze's Archiv were collected, and a good many valuable books on medicine and natural history. Canadian journals on science and medicine were bought, and a nearly complete set obtained. All that remains in the present collection is the Canada Medical and Surgical Journal, which is kept for the sake of my early contributions. (This set, after Sir William's death, was inadvertently returned to the Johns Hopkins Hospital whose book-plate it had acquired in Baltimore, W.W.F.) 

Except my student text-books (e.g. nos. 2820, 3600, 3833, and 4245), a few of Dr. Bovell's books, and some special treasures like Virchow's 'Gesammelte Abhandlungen', nothing remains of my Montreal library. A few books on general literature were bought. Connected with one is a good story. Before leaving Berlin in December 1873, while ordering Virchow's Archiv at Reimer's, I saw on the desk the prospectus of Schmidt's 'Shakespeare-Lexicon', which I asked to have sent to me as soon as published. In October 1875 I moved from Victoria Square up Beaver Hall Hill to rooms with Mr. King, an Englishman employed in the Custom House, who had but one thought in life-Shakespeare. He had an excellent library in which I often spent a pleasant hour. He was a dear old man, much esteemed, and always ready to spend more than he could afford on his hobby. One afternoon at the College, just before my lecture, the postman left on the table a parcel from Reimer's, and to my delight it was Schmidt's concordance, which had really been forgotten. My first thought was, how happy Mr. King will be to see it. I looked at it hurriedly but with much anticipatory pleasure. On my return to the house Mr. King, who had just come in, was sitting by the fire and greeted me in his cheery way with, ' What's that you've got?' 'Something that will rejoice your heart', I said, and deposited the work in his lap. The shock of the realization of a life-long dream, a complete concordance of Shakespeare, seemed to daze the old man. He had no further interest in me and not a word did he say. I never got it back! For months he avoided me, but helping him one day on the stairs, my manner showed that Schmidt was forgotten, and he never referred to it again. The work went to McGill College with his Shakespeare collection. When in the Library in 1910, I asked for the first edition of Schmidt and was glad to see my book again after thirty-five years. This story is written on the flyleaf [cf. no. 5451] as a warning to bibliomaniacs! 

For an association book of this period there remains a deep affection. In  Vienna, Brücke, to whom I had a letter of introduction, asked me to attend his lectures on physiology, but the clinical courses made it impossible except occasionally. The 'Vorlesungen', advertised to appear before I left Vienna, was ordered, and in the summer of 1874 anxiously awaited. To prepare four lectures on physiology and one on pathology each week was a heavy task. Dr. Drake, my predecessor, very kindly offered me his set, but I struggled through until Christmas, working often until 2 a.m. To my delight Brücke's 'Vorlesungen' arrived in the vacation. The problem of the lectures for the next term became a simple business of translation! 

When I left Montreal in 1884 my collection of Canadian scientific and medical journals, which was fairly complete, went to the McGill Medical Library, where they escaped the fire and are still housed. If I remember aright, they were well bound, and the collection cost me not a little time and money. It was a useful job which put me into touch with the scientific side of Canadian life, especially in geology, the study of which had fascinated me at school. 

The five years spent in Philadelphia, 1884-9, were fruitful in two directions. I became associated with a first-class medical library. The College of Physicians, founded in 1787, had for one of its special objects the establishment of a library. In the discourse delivered 6 February, 1787, by Benjamin Rush on the objects of the institution, he states that ' the library has already been established, and now consists of a number of valuable books'. In 1886 I joined the library committee of the College, and had as my colleagues, among others, Weir Mitchell, Minis Hayes, and F. P. Henry. 

A library is usually the result of the enthusiasm of one or two men. Billings made the great library in Washington; the Boston Medical Library grew up about Chadwick. The Philadelphia College Library had not prospered very greatly in the middle of the century, but in 1840 Dr. Samuel Lewis, a West Indian and an Edinburgh graduate, came to Philadelphia and for years devoted time and money to extending its scope. He was an old man in 1884 but still active mentally, and it was his habit to go to the Library every morning to look over the catalogues and see the new books that had come in. An important section of the Library is rightly called after his name. It was about this time, too, that Dr. Weir Mitchell became interested in the Library, and to him more than anyone else is due the extraordinary growth of the collections and the ever-increasing devotion of the profession of Philadelphia to the College. In Charles Perry Fisher the College found an ideal librarian, intelligent, civil, and helpful. The honorary librarian, Frederick P. Henry, was a man of keen judgement in the matter of books, and a scholarly student of the best literature. It has been a pleasure to keep in touch with the College and its interests, and now and then I have been able to get a special treasure for its Library. I induced them to buy the Huth copy of the editio princeps of Celsus, 1478, a superb copy, the best I have ever seen except the famous Grolier copy in the British Museum. Quaritch asked a shocking price for it as the binding was of special value; at the Huth sale he only paid £36 for it. One of the most interesting books I procured for the College was Rösslin's famous ' Rosegarten ', the first book published on obstetrics. Lang of Rome sent on approval what he took to be an unknown ' 1508 ' edition, bound up with a group of early sixteenth-century pamphlets. It proved to be the 1513 Strasburg edition; curiously enough, he had mistaken the old-fashioned ten (») for a five. On account of the binding and the included pamphlets, he asked a very high price (£80) which we reduced considerably. An extensive set of plates and pamphlets relating to the Siamese Twins, which I bought at the Dunn sale in 1915, was an item of peculiar interest to the College, as the 'specimen' from the Twins is in the College museum. I sent the collection on condition that it should be made as complete as possible. 

The atmosphere at Philadelphia was literary; in College circles every one wrote, and my pen and brain got a good deal of practice. I worked for Lea Bros. on the Medical News with Minis Hays, the editor, Sam Gross, and Parvin; and I devilled for Pepper for his System of Medicine, writing in addition to my own sections those of Janeway on certain of the diseases of the heart. 

The other direction in which my stay in Philadelphia was fruitful was in general education. My practice was to read for an hour at the Rittenhouse Club after dinner. The library was good, and many standard works were read for the first time, particularly American authors, Emerson, Lowell, and Franklin. My commonplace-book dates from 1882, but the entries did not become numerous until after 1884. My library grew rapidly, and important German and French sets were completed. At this time my interest in the American masters of medicine began, and some of the special treasures, like Jones (no. 3097) and Morgan (no. 3454), were picked up in Philadelphia. On leaving in the spring of 1889, nearly 1,000 volumes, chiefly journals which I knew were in Baltimore, were distributed to various libraries. To the date of my transfer to Baltimore, with a comparatively small income (but quite sufficient for my needs) only the more important books and journals could be bought. A library represents the mind of its collector, his fancies and foibles, his strength and weakness, his prejudices and preferences. Particularly is this the case if to the character of a collector he adds-or tries to add-the qualities of a student who wishes to know the books and the lives of the men who wrote them. The friendships of his life, the phases of his growth, the vagaries of his mind, all are represented. With a bigger salary and increasing income I began to buy, first, the early books and pamphlets relating to the profession in America; secondly, the original editions of the great writers in science and in medicine; and thirdly, the works of such general authors as Sir Thos. Browne, Milton, Shelley, Keats, and others. Catalogues-German, French, and English- appeared at the breakfast table, and were always in my bag for railway reading. Summer trips to England and the Continent, often of three months' duration, gave time for reading, and my interest got deeper and deeper in the history of medicine and in the lives of the great men of the profession. The association with Billings and Welch was a stimulus, and the Historical Club of the Johns Hopkins Hospital awakened no little enthusiasm. In the classroom more and more attention was paid to the historical side of questions, and at my Saturday evening meetings, after the difficulties of the week had been discussed, we usually had before us the editions of some classic. Altogether, the foundation was laid for a successful avocation, without the addition of which to his vocation no man should be called successful (so President Gilman used to say). Buying freely English and foreign books and subscribing to more than forty journals, I soon had the house overrun, but with special exceptions they were passed on to my friends or to libraries. 

My colleagues in the old Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland very soon found that I was really fonder of books than of anything else, and to help its library escape from the dingy quarters in St. Paul Street, first to the bright house in Hamilton Place and then to the present handsome building, was one of the great pleasures of my life. That my name is associated with the Hall of the Faculty, as that of Oliver Wendell Holmes with the Boston Medical Library, as David Hosack's with the Academy of Medicine in New York, and as Weir Mitchell's with the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, is a touching tribute of affection from men who knew me and whom I loved. We owed much to Miss Marcia Noyes, our first whole-time librarian, and to the devoted Dr. Eugene Cordell, the historian of the Faculty. 

In no. 2278 is a catalogue and a note of interest about a collection given to that library. In the catalogue, received one Sunday morning from George P. Johnston, Edinburgh, was a list of the theses of American students at Edinburgh from 1760 to 1813, mostly presentation copies to the Professors Hope. The list, well worth looking over, is arranged according to States, and contains the theses of some of the most famous of the early American physicians. A cable was sent at once and the collection which came in due time was presented to the Faculty library. The next summer in Edinburgh Mr. Johnston showed me a group of cables, all of which had come on the same day, but after mine. The thesis containing the note did not belong to that set, but was given me by Dr. Mitchell Bruce. 

The libraries of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical School grew rapidly, and were working collections of journals and monographs. The Surgeon-General's Library was so near that it did not seem worth while to spend much on old books. In 1906 the library of the Warrington Dispensary was offered, and I bought it on behalf of Mr. W. A. Marburg for the School. The collection is interesting as a memorial of a remarkable group who lived at Warrington in the last- quarter of the 18th century: Priestley, Percival, Aikin and others. One library, that of the late Dr. J. F. Payne, was lost for the School in an aggravating way. It was sold at Sotheby's in 1911 (no. 6350) and first offered en bloc. Our kind friend Mr. Marburg authorized me to go as high as £2,000. The bidding rose rapidly and crossed this limit, to be knocked down very precipitately at £2,300. We could easily have sold duplicates up to £500 or raised the extra money. There were many good items in the collection, and I am glad for the sake of Dr. Payne's memory that it has been kept together and will be well housed in the Wellcome Historical Museum. 

When I left Baltimore in 1905, sets of journals, monographs, and many works on general literature were distributed among friends and the libraries. A good beginning had been made in an attempt to get the original editions of the great authors in medicine. The Sir Thomas Browne collection was nearly complete. For some years Dr. Harvey Cushing and I had bought everything of Vesalius that was offered. One evening we had six copies of the first edition (1543) on exhibition. With the cash in pocket the book is impossible to resist, and I have distributed six copies to libraries. Forgetting what I had done, I took out a copy in 1907 to McGill, and showed it with pride to Dr. Shepherd, the librarian, who pointed out in one of the show-cases a very much better example presented by me some years before! Thinking it would be a very acceptable present to the Boston Library Association (in which I had a personal interest through Dr. James Chadwick and Dr. E. H. Brigham), I took the volume to Dr. Farlow, who looked a bit puzzled and amused. 'Come upstairs', he said; and there in a case in the Holmes room, spread open at the splendid title-page, was the 1543 edition and, on a card beneath it, 'The gift of Dr. Osler'. I had better luck at New York, where the volume found a resting-place in the Library of the Academy of Medicine. 

An association book of rare interest (no. 5551) is connected with my departure from Baltimore. My messmates in The Ship of Fools, a social club, gave a dinner, and presented me with Voltaire's 'Henriade' bound by Padeloup and with autograph verses by Voltaire to his physician, Silva. The years spent in the United States, 1884-1905, brought 'troops of friends' whose affection is part of my life; they brought me, too, into sympathetic touch with another company, those friends of the spirit, the great and good men of the past who, through much tribulation, handed on the torch to our generation. It was the height of my ambition as a teacher to live up to the ideals of Morgan and Rush, of Hosack and Gerhard, of Bartlett and Drake, of Jackson and Bigelow. To know and to make known to students the lives and works of these men was a labour of love. Their works were collected and, what is more, read, and a regret remains that lack of time prevented the completion of many projected bio-bibliographical sketches. 

Oxford brought two things-leisure and opportunity. Not that more time necessarily means more work. My literary output from 1905 to 1915 is not to be compared with that between 1895 and 1905, but there were heavy arrears to make up in general and special reading, without which this catalogue (still far from completion) could never have been attempted. The opportunity was great. A Curator of the Bodleian (as ex officio I am) and Delegate of the Press is forced into the most bookish circles of the University. Very soon there was a feeling that a day had not been well spent if altogether away from Bodley. I envied the men who could be there all day and every day. There are greater libraries, there are more convenient libraries, but for solid comfort and ' atmosphere ' give me a seat in Duke Humphrey or a table in the Selden End! In his autobiography (no. 7254),  perhaps the best ever written-all the essentials in 16 pages! - Bodley gives the four qualifications which encouraged him to set up his Staffe at the Library doore in Oxford: leisure, knowledge, friends, and purse-ability. His letters between 1598 and 1613 show how successful he was in laying the foundation of one of the great libraries of the world. And the blessing of the liberal soul has followed his endeavours. 

Gradually, as my collection grew, plans for its disposition had to be considered. Already at the outbreak of the war my son, Edward Revere, aged 18, who had just 'come up' to Christ Church, had shown unmistakably the direction of his tastes, and it was agreed that he should take the works in general literature while the medical and scientific books should go to McGill. During the first three years of the war, while he was with the McGill unit and the Royal Artillery, his interest in English literature developed rapidly. I sent on the catalogues and he began to buy on his own account. It was a diversion to send bids to the sales and to pick up bargains out of the second-hand Catalogues. I bought for him several nice collections, such as the originals of Ruskin and some Whitman items from the Dowden sale. At the Harris sale in Oxford, when on leave a few weeks before he was killed, he was so happy over the purchase of the Holland Plutarch, an Overbury MS., and a number of special books in which he was interested. What he had collected, together with my original editions of Milton, Fuller, Donne, Shelley, Keats, makes the nucleus of a good library of English literature, and this section his mother and I have decided to dedicate as a memorial to him. [See no. 7241] 

Though a wanderer, living away from Montreal for more than half my life, the early associations I have never forgotten. The formative years were there with the strong ties of head and heart. As a young, untried man, McGill College offered me an opportunity to teach and to work; but what is more, the members of the Medical Faculty adopted me, bore with vagaries and aggressiveness, and often gave practical expressions of sympathy with schemes which were costly and of doubtful utility. That they believed in me helped to a belief in myself, an important asset for a young man,  but better had by nurture than by nature. Alma Mater, too, counts for much, and as a graduate of McGill I am proud of her record. Had I not seen the day of small things ? Did I not graduate in the days of the Coté Street school? I may quote Fuller's sentiment: 'He [the good Bishop] conceiv'd himself to heare his Mother-Colledge alwayes speaking to him in the language of Joseph to Pharaoh's butler, But think on me, I pray thee,  when it shall be well with thee ' [no. 4833, p.283].  Then there is the natural feeling of loyalty to the country of one's birth and breeding. These are the considerations which decided me to leave the special collection to my old school at Montreal. With some of Bodley's qualifications it seemed possible gradually to gather a modest collection of books not likely to be either in the general library of the University or in the special library of the Faculty, or indeed in the country. There will, of course, be duplicates, but for special reasons. 

To get shelf room the new books have had to be given away. The monographs and reprints on diseases of the heart, arteries, blood, and the tuberculosis items go to the Library of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. There is left over a motley collection of miscellaneous works which may remain in the house to help fill the shelves.

Gradually, as the books increased, the hope matured into a scheme for a library which would have (a) a definite educational value, (b) a literary, and (c) an historical interest. To break a collection into sections is hazardous, but I considered that, after all, this would form a special part of the Medical Faculty library just as the latter is a section of the University library. So I decided to follow my own plan and group the books in the following divisions¹ 

I.. Prima, which gives in chronological order a bio-bibliographical account of the evolution of science, including medicine. 
II. Secunda, the works of men who have made notable contributions, or whose works have some special interest, but scarcely up to the mark of those in Prima. III. Litteraria, the literary works written by medical men, and books dealing in a general way with doctors and the profession. 
IV. Historica, with the stories of institutions, &c. 
V. Biographica. 
VI. Bibliographica. 
VII. Incunabula, and 
VIII. Manuscripts. 

Then came the ambitious desire to prepare for printing a catalogue raisonné somewhat on the lines of Ferguson's 'Bibliotheca Chemica' (no. 7040), with biographical and bibliographical notes. The introductions² to the individual sections will explain to students how they are to be used. The task is perhaps too heavy for one man to undertake; but I am assured by experts that there is no inherent difficulty in such a catalogue, provided there is a good index. Should I die before its completion, which is not at all unlikely, the catalogue could be finished and printed; and Lady Osler, with my good friends L. L. Mackall, W. W. Francis, and T. A. Malloch, would see that my wishes were carried out. 

The library is for the use of students of the history of science and of medicine, without any other qualifications, and I particularly wish that it may be used by my French Canadian colleagues, who will find it rich in the best of French literature. I hope to make provision for its extension and upkeep. 

The books have come from three sources: sales, catalogues, and second-hand bookshops. 

EDITORS' NOTE. The Introduction proper ends at this point unfinished. Among the notes for its continuation was found the account of the Van Antwerp sale, written several years earlier. The intention, no doubt, was to use it to illustrate the first of the three sources mentioned. It is, therefore, printed here as Appendix I, followed by a note on a Paris auction in the following year. Other isolated paragraphs, mostly notes for the intended special introduction to Bibliotheca Litteraria, have been printed under the relevant entries in the catalogue (e.g. at nos. 4770, 4050, 5242, 5526, &c.). See also no, 7656, which contains drafts of all the introductory material. 

¹ Described in further detail in the Preface 
² These introductions, unfortunately, were not written [EDITORS.]

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