Bibliotheca Osleriana

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APPENDIX II 


DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIAL BOOKS TO OTHER LIBRARIES¹ 


To the British Museum, in appreciation of much valuable help and of my friendship with many members of the staff, particularly the Keeper, my dear friend Alfred W. Pollard - The 1476 unique copy of Rhazes [no. 451]. 

To Bodley - The illustrated Arabic Dioscorides, A.D. 1239 - which will comfort the heart of Dr. Cowley - one of, I believe, the three illustrated MSS. of this author in Arabic [no. 346]; 
The Sir John Harigton - MS. of the Regimen of Salerno, his well-known translation [no. 7623]; 
Andrew Boorde - whom I love and to whom full justice has never been done in the Profession - the MS. of his Peregrination of England [no. 7525] 

To the Royal College of Physicians - The Regulations and Transactions of the Gloucestershire Medical Society, 1788-93, in the handwriting chiefly of Edward Jenner [no. 1267]; 
The Theodore de Mayerne case-book [no. 7589], which will rejoice the President, Sir Norman Moore's, heart. 

These are really the only important items in my library which should not go out of the country. 


To the Faculté de Médecine de Paris - Paré's Anatomie Universelle, 1561, of which no copy exists in their library or in the British Museum and only two or three other copies are known [no, 657]. 

To the Royal Society of Medicine - Withering's letters, papers and diploma, 1764-99; and I hope some member of the Historical Section will edit them carefully [no, 7637]. 

To the University of Leyden - Boerhaave's quadrant, presented to him with the tables of latitude and longitude when he moved into his country house, Oud-Poelgeest; with a gentle reminder that perhaps they scarcely deserve to have back the treasure, which I bought for [blank] gulden at Leyden [no. 1126]. 

To the Biblioteca Lancisiana, Rome - The MS. letter-book of Baglivi, the distinguished Roman clinician, with letters from his scientific friends, among them Malpighi and Redi, and with drafts of his replies [no. 7516]. No hurry about the return of this, which I bought in Rome at auction for 500 lire. Before it returns some one should work up the letters². 

To the Surgeon-General's Library, Washington - So difficult to give anything to a collection so rich; but I thought that perhaps the MS. of my farewell address, The Fixed Period, which caused a little excitement, would find its best resting-place in a library to which I owe so much and some of whose members - Billings, Fletcher, and Garrison - have been my intimate friends. It is the typewritten copy [no. 7645], as I read it, and I have put a note ³ the printing of which might be deferred a few years. 

To the College of Physicians, Philadelphia - The Montpellier MS. text-book, 1348 [Bernardus de Gordonio, no. 7533] 

N.B. All these items should appear in my catalogue, with a statement where they now are.

W.O.

¹  Details of dates etc. have been corrected and the numbers of the entries added. The list, as Sir William Osler wrote it (from memory, during his last illness), is printed in the Life, no. 7746ii, p682. Besides these twelve special books, three items designated by him, and having local associations, have been presented to the appropriate libraries, namely, his annotated copy of Macray's Annals, no. 7265, to Bodley; the Randolph copy of Sibthorp's Flora Oxoniensis, no. 3973, to the Botanic Garden, Oxford; and an uncommon medical diploma, no. 7538 to Cambridge University. The duplicate, no, 4635, of Burton's Philosophaster has been transferred to E. R. Osler's library. With these sixteen exceptions, all the books in this catalogue are now at Montreal. [EDITORS.]

²  Not yet edited, it remains for the present in the Osler Library. [EDITORS.]

³  The note is not to be found. [EDITORS.]


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