How to Write a Medical History Paper

Department of Medical History
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4799
 
"We carry within ourselves the seeds of historical consciousness and experience: we grow older and know that we were younger; we have a history. So does everyone and everything else. The more refined our historical understanding, the better prepared we are to recognize complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty as intractable conditions of human society. The student with a sharply honed historical consciousness knows that everything is not what it seems to be, that what should be a simple solution to a simple problem will not work because unexpressed historical forces and traditions lie just beneath the surface waiting to be awakened. Such a student does not believe everything read, becomes a cautious skeptic, learns to recognize that events occur sequentially, and that the sequence matters. A consciousness of history allows us to impose some intellectual order on the disorder of random facts. Facts do not speak for themselves; meaning must be drawn from them by minds soundly trained, nurtured to recognize their opportunities, experienced in making the connections and grasping the complexities that history piles up around us. Historical consciousness helps to make the world comprehensible."
 
Integrity in the College Curriculum: A Report to the Academic Community, Association of American Colleges, 1985.
 
Cited in, Perspectives, American Historical Association, 23, 6, 1985.
 
"Scholarly endeavor requiring originality, research, and ability to write challenges students to think and express themselves. Effective writing characterized by accurate grammar, sound analysis, and persuasive argument should be cultivated in regular practice through required assignments. Such skills can be developed in many disciplines. "
 
Panel on the General Professional Education of the Physician, Association of American Medical Colleges, 1984.
 
This guide should give you answers to most of your questions about writing the required paper for the Medical History course. Remember that you have to discuss your topic with me or with Dr. Joy after you read this guide and before you start to write. Please see the Memorandum given you at the beginning of classes for due dates and grading policy.
 
WHY YOU ARE WRITING A PAPER
 
There are many reasons for reading and studying history -- the most common is what we call heritage. Heritage is the desire to know the heroes, heroines and villains of the past, the great triumphs and failures which shaped the institutions of today. In understanding and claiming a heritage you graft on to or are adopted in a tradition or profession. Most professions have a sense of heritage and encourage heritage awareness among the members of the profession. The lectures and the issued textbooks will assist you in claiming your dual heritage as members of both the military and medical professions. But heritage, while part of professional training, is not education in the full sense of helping you find effective ways to be an independent, lifelong learner.
 
The use of history beyond heritage requires experience with history; the only way to understand the way history is written is to write it. I do not expect you to become historians, but I do want you to understand the complexities and ambiguities of changing practice over time. I also want you to recognize the value and limitations of historical analogies and arguments. As you progress in your military medical career you will find yourself in a variety of leadership positions. Some will require you to do staff work, others will require you to act based on the staff work or policy decisions of other people. Historical analogy is frequently a part of military and medical decision-making; it is crucial that you be able to evaluate the history being used. In clinical practice and medical science, change takes place for various reasons - some scientific, some political, some economic; as you participate in and lead changing practice patterns you need to appreciate all the various factors which contribute to the process. History allows you to examine that complex process without personal involvement, so that you are, hopefully, better able to understand what is happening when you are involved. While attending lectures and reading help you use history, writing a history paper is the best way to begin developing the skills required to use and understand history effectively. Writing the history paper also permits you to select your learning objectives, to control the pace of your work, and to independently produce a discussion that you direct-not an examination that is directed to you.
 
Finally, there is the pragmatic issue of evaluation of the course. It is possible to give an objective examination but having you commit a lot of facts to memory would not be useful. Besides, its not really fair - some people learn easily from lectures but some prefer a textbook and there is no textbook which covers the material. If all I wanted was for you to gain a sense of heritage I could grade on attendance but I want more for you from a university policy that, generally does not require lecture attendance. So you are writing a paper. By giving you wide latitude regarding the topic, I hope you enjoy it, but even more I hope you learn from it.
 
HOW TO CHOOSE A TOPIC
 
You may select a topic on almost ANY aspect of the history of medicine you wish. You do NOT have to select a topic in military, naval or aviation medicine. You may be interested in the history of a disease, of a physiological phenomenon, of medical practice or education or patient care. You may want to explore a medical social issue like health insurance, preventive medicine, abortion, immunization and so on. Perhaps a technology or a basic science or a particular physician or the development of instrumentation fascinates you. You can explore the development of medical theory and/or practice in other cultures -- Europe, Asia, India, Africa, ancient Greece, etc. Your hobbies, sports, reading, and past experiences all have potential for a medical history topic.
 
One way to find a topic is to scan the general textbooks of the history of medicine. Multiple copies of A Short History of Medicine by Erwin Ackernecht and From Humors to Medical Science: a History of American Medicine by John Duffy. are in the LRC. Explore other sources such as Fielding H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine (1929); Douglas Guthrie, A History of Medicine (1946) or Charles J. Singer and Ashworth Underwood, A Short History of Medicine (1962). You will find other general histories of medicine shelved with these which can be consulted as well.
 
The available range of potential topics may be seen by looking at the contents pages of the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Bibliography of the History of Medicine (1964-1993). Gert H. Brieger's paper, "History of Medicine," in P.T. Durbin, ed., A Guide to the Culture of Science, Technology and Medicine (1980), is a very useful overview; see especially pages 162-165 of his essay for type-specific research problems. Whitfield Bell wrote an excellent essay some years ago on topics in local medical history which is still useful for ideas. If all else fails, come and see me or Dr. Joy. We guarantee to find you a topic that will interest you, but we do expect that you will have done your own thinking and looking first.
 
SOURCES
 
There are three kinds of source material in history. Primary sources are those that were produced at the time of some event by people in direct knowledge of what happened. They may be everything from letters, diaries and photographs to medical/scientific journal articles or even textbooks -- it depends on your topic. Primary sources will not normally interpret or analyze the events you are interested in -- they simply record or document the event. Secondary sources are books and articles that discuss, analyze, interpret, synthesize and review primary sources. The history of medicine journal literature is a gold mine of primary and secondary sources. Use it! Tertiary sources are usually textbooks or review articles that collate and organize information and data from secondary sources. You will usually use tertiary sources only to get an overview of your area of interest.
 
The definition of sources depends on the question being asked. If you are writing about the recognition of a particular disease your primary sources will most likely be the printed journal articles of the physicians who did the work. If you are writing about a military campaign the primary sources are the plans and after action reports of the participants. Sometimes you can not get contemporary material and the best source is a later reminiscence or a second hand news account. While not primary sources in the strictest definition of the term these will be accounted as such if they are the best source available. For some subjects books that would not normally be considered primary sources become primary sources. For example, if you want to discuss the changes in professional opinion about a diagnostic test or therapy, in addition to papers arguing for and against change, you would need to show that change occurred -- text books might be the best source to show changes in professional opinion. If you have questions please ask the faculty, we are here to help.
 
What are the sources of information for your paper? How do you find the ones you need? Knowledge of what happened in the past is preserved in various kinds of records; the most obvious is the printed record in pamphlets, books, or journals. Other records of knowledge include recorded human memory, maps, manuscripts, musical scores, sound recordings, motion pictures and video recordings, graphic materials, machine readable data files and three dimensional artifacts and relics.
 
Regardless of form and shape, all of these records of knowledge can be utilized in the construction of history. Various kinds of history depend more on certain types than others -- very few of your papers, for example, would depend upon musical scores or sound recordings although it is conceivable that you would use such information. You will use several different kinds. Each of these varieties of records of knowledge requires different preservation techniques and different means of controlling access to them. It is this issue of controlling access to the universe of records of knowledge we need to consider. How is it preserved and how do you find it? The knowledge of medicine in the past is mainly recorded in two forms -- books (and monographs) and serials or periodical journals. These are classified and treated differently because despite their similarity in form, they are quite different. The book is a discrete object, frequently unique in kind and content. Periodical or serial publications, on the other hand, continue over time and contain a wide variety of information. (Serials are titles which continue over time, periodicals are serials which appear regularly and more than one issue each year.) This information is constrained by the scope of the serial or periodical. In medicine and science usually that which is contained is only medicine and science. Some serials have broader and others narrower scopes of content.
 
Because the book was the first form in which we recorded knowledge in an organized way we call the access and control system bibliographic control. The basic means of bibliographic control is the bibliographic record which identifies and describes the unique item. These records are organized or filed for individual access and therefore each record must have at least one access point in any system -- the more access points a system provides for records the more control and ease of access is provided. The bibliographic record must provide all the information needed to find the record.
 
There are many types of bibliographic control files -- catalogs, indexes, bibliographies and so forth. The basic distinctions are the scope of file. A catalog is usually a file of a specific place or places -- a physical collection of records -- the obvious example is a library catalog. A bibliography has no particular physical reference -- its scope is abstract, usually defined by subject matter. An index is the most frequently made bibliography and is controlled for time and/or space.
 
Garrison- Morton, A Medical Bibliography: an Annotated Checklist of Texts Illustrating the History of Medicine by Leslie T. Morton, (the 4th edition is in the LRC) is a bibliography in the true sense. Many of you will find it useful in that it mentions classic contributions to medicine, broadly considered, in all languages at all times. It is divided into the basic sciences and the medical specialties. There are sections on a variety of physiological systems as well as special sections on the history of medicine. There are sections on bibliography and dictionaries. It includes many things, but for your purposes, it may guide you to works which you should know about on any given subject. Secondly it will frequently give an English translation, if one exists, of a work originally published in another language.
 
The NLM's Index Medicus, on the other hand, was a standard index; it lists all the records of medical knowledge occurring in certain indexed journals for a particular part of the year or cumulatively for the whole year. Notice that not all journals are indexed in Index Medicus, not even all medical journals to which the NLM has a subscription. Index Medicus is now over a hundred years old; its utility is great if you are trying to find out about a particular subject in a particular time or if you know a particular work was published in a particular year (or even approximately when), by a particular author, or on a particular subject; however, going randomly through a hundred years of Index Medicus with a very large subject leads you to the whole literature and is an essentially unmanageable task. Thus a bibliography frequently provides the outline of those records which are most significant to its compiler while Index Medicus provides access to that which is less frequently enduring although it may or may not have been seen as significant in its original time and place. You will need all of these varieties of files in order to complete your history papers. After you have the reference from a bibliography or index you need to find the actual record, usually in a library. The most important library for your paper will be the USUHS Learning Resources Center (LRC) although many of you may ultimately use other collections as your work progresses. (If you feel you need to update your familiarity with library cataloging see the appendix to this instruction "The Library Catalog.") Modern medicine and science is reported in journals, use them; it is the rare paper which depends primarily on books. Our experience with years of student papers has shown that the history of medicine journal literature is not often cited or even used. The medical history journals are an invaluable secondary source. A certain way to find references useful to you, as well as historical points of view you may not have considered, is to read what historians have already published. Use books - medical, historical, and bibliographic - to get to the journals which usually are "nearer" to the event reported and so usually "better" sources of information. You may of course go beyond printed sources to archival records and interview techniques. There are specific guides for using these kinds of records, please consult the faculty before you begin to insure you are aware of the appropriate resources and methods.
 
HOW TO FIND AND USE SOURCES
 
The LRC staff have an area in the reference section set aside for your use in doing the history paper. Some of the bibliographic sources listed below are on a separate shelf. You will also find copies of the excellent review of bibliographic sources and how to find and use them, prepared by members of the USUHS Learning Resources Center staff, LRC Research Guide to the History of Medicine and of the National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Guide to Sources.
 
The history of medicine collection in your library has been assembled to provide old and new primary and secondary source material in military medicine and new secondary source material in military history and the general history of medicine and science. You will begin your research in the LRC; interlibrary loan, if you start early, will help, but you will probably need to use the National Library of Medicine, Library of Congress, or other repositories for additional material. Our rare book collection contains early (prior to 1900) material in military medicine and infectious diseases. The collection is for your use -- ask at the circulation desk for help in getting a particular rare book. The medical library (The Stitt Library) at the Navy Hospital also has good holdings in rare books. They are open at convenient hours for you (295-1184). Our LRC Reference staff are superb at helping you use bibliographies, at showing you how to find material, and at getting material on interlibrary loan. It is your job to dig out the references. Finding your sources is part of your education; you will be doing it for various reasons all your professional life.
 
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
 
Once you have a general idea about your topic, begin the search for sources by using bibliographies. There are two bibliographies of particular value to you.
 
(1) The Subject Catalogue of the History of Medicine and Related Sciences, is published for the Wellcome Institute by Kraus International Publication, Munich. It is an eighteen volume set in three sections: nine volumes by subject entry, four volumes by geographical location, and five volumes of biographical entries. The citations end in 1975. It is on the history shelf, as is the other valuable tool,
 
(2) the annual Bibliography of the History of Medicine was published by the National Library of Medicine from 1964-1993. The Bibliography is divided by subject along the same lines as the MEDLINE data base and is available on line since 1971 as HISTLINE. Every fifth issue is a cumulative volume covering the previous five years and the cumulative issues are used to pick up citations missed in the annual volumes. The Bibliography is the most complete reference tool available for the period during which it was issued but its modern subject divisions make it difficult to use for topics in the ancient or medieval periods. HISTLINE is publicly available on the internet. The LRC staff has prepared a guide for its access and use - .
 
(3) The public computer data bases, particularly MEDLINE, have some historical material; use your subject with the added qualifier " -- history," to find secondary source materials and reprints. Direct access to MEDLINE is available to you in the LRC microcomputer area at no charge. The LRC reference shelves have other bibliographies you may find useful. See:
 
(4) Jonathan Erlen, History of the Health Care Sciences (1984);
 
(5) Genevieve Miller, Bibliography of the History of Medicine in the United States and Canada 1939-1960 (1960) with three supplements for 1961, 1962 and 1963 (originally published in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine). The NLM Bibliography then took over.
 
(6) Current Work in the History of Medicine, quarterly journal, is on the journal shelves and contains the most recent articles.
 
BIOGRAPHY
 
There are many sources for biographical material. Among those which may be useful to you are the following:
 
1) The NLM Bibliography has a separate section in front by the name of the person.
 
2) Dictionary of American Medical Biography, Martin Kaufman, et al., ed., (1984) is a modern collection of short articles with detailed references.
 
3) Dictionary of American Medical Biography, Howard A. Kelly and Walter Burrage, ed., (1928) is the final edition of an earlier collection. It is useful for prominent 19th century physicians.
 
4) Lisabeth Holloway, ed., Medical Obituaries, provides limited data and reference to obituaries in selected American Medical journals prior to 1907.
 
5) Directory of Deceased American Physicians 1804-1929, prepared by the AMA staff, provides standard data from AMA and other published records.
 
6) Index Medicus and The Index Catalogue both contain references to obituaries but you may need help, the "system" changes over time.
 
7) Non medical sources, i.e., Dictionary of National Biography (Great Britain)
 
Dictionary of American Biography (U.S.) Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Who Was Who, Current Biography, etc. are all useful for medical personnel. See the section on Biography in the Research Guide for other suggestions.
 
Technical Bibliographies
 
The "technical" bibliographies are essential as guides to the professional literature of the past, frequently your primary sources. Two are especially important: The Index Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office, five series, 1880 to 1961 and Index Medicus (title varies), 1879 to 1995. Neither are easy to use -- consult the LRC Reference staff for help. Both are now replaced by computer bibliographic tools which also require some experience to use effectively, but be aware the computers do not entirely cover the period covered by the printed sources.
 
Special Bibliographies
 
There are scores of specialized bibliographies. For example, Arthur Bloomfield has done two Bibliographies in internal medicine; Ira Rutkow has a multi-volume bibliography on American surgery; Mark Barrow has one on medical aspects of American Indians; Judson Gilbert has compiled medical history articles from the history literature (1902- 1937); John Blake listed the eighteenth century books at NLM; Richard Durling did the same for the sixteenth century and Peter Kravatsy for the seventeenth century. William Osler's Bibliotheca (1929) has useful annotations to old and rare books. A large number of bibliographies were identified by Theodore Besterman, Medicine: A bibliography of bibliographies (Totowa, NJ: Rowman/Littlefield, 1971). There are two papers by Fye and another by Creaton which may provide further assistance. Use "Bibliography" as a subject entry on the LRC Public Access Catalog to find these and other useful bibliographies.
 
Translations
 
Your topic may require you to use material originally published in a language other than English. Unless you read that language, you will believe you have gone down a blind alley. Translations of primary sources will be counted as primary sources for this paper. If you will seek collections of "classic" papers, you may find what you need. Such collected volumes tend to be Classics of (in) . . . or Selected Reading in. . . and so on. Much of the important European work of the 19th century was translated by the Sydenham Societies; their various volumes can be a gold mine. For an index to their publications see in the LRC, G.G. Meynell, The Two Sydenham Societies (1985), and at the NLM see Jonathan Hutchinson, Retrospective Memoranda and Index, The New Sydenham Society (1911). The NLM will also have a journal (edited by John Forbes), British and Foreign Medical Review (1848-1877), for these years, many of the important papers and monographs in Europe were translated or abstracted. Your textbook by Ackernecht lists many translations and reprints under "Suggestions for Further Reading." Also see such collections as Ralph H. Major, Classic Descriptions of Disease; H.A. Lechevalier and M. Solotorovsky, Three Centuries of Microbiology and the volumes of the Benchmark Papers in Human Physiology, edited by L.L. Langley. The LRC has the journal Medical Classics -- many of the papers are translations. This is a useful journal to know about. J.S. Emmerson, Translations of Medical Classics (1965) may also be helpful. Many European medical papers were translated and reprinted in English and American journals after the 1880s. If you look in the Index Medicus or the Index Catalogue under the author's name for a few years after the original publication you may find a translation. Finally, consult the reference librarians at USUHS and NLM -- they will often be able to guide you to other translations.
 
DICTIONARIES
 
If your topic is set in eras before the mid-twentieth century, you may not understand words like "zymotic" or "diathesis," and so on. Use a dictionary of the period to look up a word -- you usually will then be able to figure out the meaning. Our library has 19th century dictionaries; NLM has those for earlier periods. Tonelli's list is one of the most complete guides to early dictionaries.
 
Medical History Journals
 
There are four English language history of medicine journals in the LRC. They are: Annals of Medical History; The Bulletin of the History of Medicine: The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences; and Medical History. The Annals runs from 1917 to 1942 and is no longer published. It is a good source for the older papers in the field. You would be well advised to look through the papers and book reviews for the last two or three years of the Bulletin, the Journal and Medical History. It takes time to get material into the bibliographies -- the paper or book you may want as a source may be brand-new.
 
General History
 
You may need to be refreshed (or to learn) about General history. The LRC has the following college-level texts that may be useful:

Read modern general history, forget what you learned in high school. There is a cliche, "It's not what you don't know that will hurt you, its what you know for sure that isn't so." Your topic has a context; be sure you know what that context is and demonstrate its relationship to your topic in your writing.
 
HOW TO START THE PAPER
 
You have now chosen a general topic and know how to find sources. You will want to have a broad and general overview of the topic and the area before you narrow your focus. Begin by reading on the topic in one or more of the general histories of medicine. Then read two or three of the review monographs that deal with your topic. These will have references to journal literature and finely detailed monographs that are the sources you really want to examine.
 
Somewhere in this preliminary reading you will focus your topic by asking a QUESTION. This is the specific thesis of your paper. THIS IS WHEN YOU COME TO SEE US. WHEN YOU HAVE CHOSEN A TOPIC AND A QUESTION, YOU MUST TALK TO US BEFORE YOU START YOUR RESEARCH. Bring a pen/pencil and paper, we will tell you things you will want to remember later. There are two reasons for the meeting -- both aimed at helping you. The first is to permit us to guide you to the relevant literature (if we know it). Sometimes we will suggest primary sources, usually we will suggest secondary or tertiary sources as an appropriate starting place. Do not assume the references we tell you to read are the only references you need to write your paper. The second reason to see us is to help you to focus your question. The hardest job is to narrow down your area of interest to a scope and focus that you can do in the time and paper length available. "I want to write on the history of obstetrics" is a laudable aim, but is the topic a large book. "The history of the obstetrical forceps" is a reasonable topic for a paper. "I want to write about the life of William Osler" will commit you to a book review; but you can ask questions about the aspects of William Osler's life. The following example suggests how questions may be asked. You may be interested in Thomsonian medicine, one of the "medical sects" in America in the mid-nineteenth century. You can ask any number of questions. Where does this "sect" fit into the general pattern of eclectic medicine of the period? Who was Samuel Thomson, why did he invent his system and how did he operate it? What was Thomsonianism in practice -- its scientific assumptions, its literature, its practice? What did a Thomsonian practitioner do? What allopathic (regular) medicine of the period like -- was Thomsonianism a reaction, a reflection, an innovation or an extension? Were there social, educational, economic or other demographic variables specific to the practitioners or patients of this medical system? And finally, any combination or permutation of these queries. In short-- the old "who, what, where, when, how and why" of journalism, of fiction, or of any descriptive narrative should be in your mind when you frame your question. Who, what, when, and where are matters of fact - you must know them to write a paper. It is your explanation of the "how" and "why" where you make your contribution to our understanding of medicine in the past.
 
HOW TO DO YOUR RESEARCH
 
You must read broadly enough to recognize the crucial issues as they impact on your question. As you delve into your question you will be analyzing and evaluating what your sources say. This is the tricky part! As you evaluate your sources consider the author, the evidence, and the context. Who wrote it, when, why, what authority does the author have on the subject, what is the source of that authority? What is the basis for the author's claims -- personal knowledge; reports of experience, experiments, events witnessed, etc. or research and analysis of the work of others -- a review of experience, reports based on things told the author, etc.?
 
Why did the author write when he or she did? What else was going on, what was generally accepted as true about the subject discussed, what did the author know, think, believe, and how was the author's position related to the general position on the subject? These and other questions will occur to you while you read a source. As you read good secondary history you will understand how other historians analyze sources. Obviously, much is subjective about the process of constructing a story about the past, but careful reading, thorough analysis, logic and consistency will go a long way toward making your paper an historical contribution.
 
You will initially read secondary sources with the idea of finding out what happened, and what others have had to say about the event. Two authors may reach different conclusions about what happened or what was the significance of the event and you will want to pursue this to draw your own conclusions. A major advantage of finding a good secondary source on your topic is that this will lead you back to other secondary sources and to primary materials. A well-documented recent book could give you all you need in terms of a bibliography for your paper. But beware -- the author may be biased and have ignored materials which treat the opposite view. One way of judging a book is to look at the Bulletin of the History of Medicine or the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences for the two or three years following the copyright date and see if the book was reviewed and if so, what the reviewer thought were its strengths and weaknesses. There are a number of book review indexes and digests which may be helpful at this stage. Current Book Review Citations (1976-) is probably the most complete single source for books since 1976.
 
There is a CSI Report, Evaluating Historical Materials by Larry Roberts, on reserve in the LRC; I urge you to read it. There are several copies of a small paperback, Researching and Writing in History by F. N. McCoy on reserve. This guide is written for graduate students in history and not totally applicable to your work. However, the book can be scanned in thirty minutes and does have both a variety of helpful suggestions and the outline of a rational plan of approach to a history paper.
 
Be warned: you cannot start your paper in May. You will be heavily committed to Physiology and Neuroanatomy. Our library and the National Library of Medicine are closed during several holidays that you may have counted on to use for reading, and the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine is closed nights and weekends. You may need major support in interlibrary loans. It takes an average of two weeks to get material on interlibrary loan and it may take longer if the material is not available locally. Schedule time in the late fall to begin to consider your topic and plan your reading. You should have begun serious work on your topic no later than early February. You will need March and April to finish reading and to write, since you are going to have to work on the paper part-time, in and around your other courses and their examinations. Be aware that the various typing services take work on a first come - first served basis. You will find it exceptionally difficult to get your paper typed the day before it is due. In past years electrical storms and/or heavy use of the LRC computers have resulted in systems failures the day medical history papers were due; systems failure is not an acceptable excuse for a late paper.
 
HOW TO WRITE THE ESSAY
 
You are to write about 15 pages of text; approximately 3000-4000 words. Pages for notes and for any illustrations do not count against these pages. Your problem is going to be to write this little, not this much. Do not write more than 17 pages without asking me first. I will stop reading and assign a grade (probably low) at the end of page 17.
 
Remember that an essay is a "short literary composition intended to prove some particular point or illustrate or interpret a particular subject." Your essay should convince readers that your answer to the question you asked is the best answer available given your sources and current knowledge. THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE ARE IMPORTANT; THEY ARE YOUR DATA AND THE FRAMEWORK FOR YOUR ESSAY. THE HOW AND WHY ARE THE INTERESTING PARTS AND WHERE I EXPECT TO SEE YOUR ANALYSIS OF THE SOURCES AND EVENTS.
 
Clear, simple declarative sentences, grammatically correct and free of errors of syntax will best serve your purpose. I strongly urge you to read several issues of the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences and the Bulletin of the History of Medicine to familiarize yourself with the historical essay. It is not the same style or format used in clinical or scientific papers. A collection of history essays from JAMA by Dr. Lester King (American Medicine Comes of Age) is in the LRC, they are good examples of the style. Two common mistakes are generalizing, either beyond your data or without supporting references (if in doubt reference it), and departing from strict chronology. It is very difficult to write a good history paper while violating strict chronological order.
 
Your manuscript should be typewritten in double space. Please use a straightforward (courier, times roman, etc.) typeface of approximately 12 point type ( 10 characters to the inch - pica). Quoted material of sixty words or more should be typed single space, each line indented five characters (i.e. l/2 inch), and without quotation marks. Shorter quotations should be run into the text using double quotes; quotes within quotes should use single quotation marks. The usual rules of punctuation apply.
 
Put a cover page on the essay with the title, your name, rank, and the date. Do not put the manuscript in any form of binder. Use one staple in the upper left hand corner. Use regular or bond paper 8 1/2 by 11 inches in size -- never onionskin, erasable or other "special" paper. Turn in only the original copy -- not a xerographic copy. Do not use a dot matrix printer unless it produces letter quality text; the text must be dark and legible. Be sure you number the pages of the essay, I prefer the number in the top right corner of each page.
 
References or notes should be typed double space on pages following the end of the text. Start a new page for references, do not add them to the last page of the text or at the bottom of your text pages. Use consecutive superior numbers placed after the mark of punctuation for textual citations. In the notes themselves, the first note, unnumbered, should include any acknowledgements and disclaimers. Number the rest of the notes and citations serially as given in the text. For a second reference to the same source, if immediately following, use Ibid.; if other notes intervene use the authors name and the original note number, examples of style for references including capitalization and punctuation follow:

Your references demonstrate your work, they are as important as the text itself. BE SURE TO GIVE FULL REFERENCES AND USE THIS SYSTEM OF CITATION!
 
If you use references of a kind not covered in the above list you may extrapolate an appropriate and consistent style or, if you are unsure, see me. The task of references is to provide the bibliographic record which allows others to find your source of information. It is improper (also unethical, illegal and perhaps carcinogenic) to cite a source you have not read. If you must cite a source from a source, cite both; e.g., Norman Bridge and John Rhodes, Medical and Dental Colleges of the West, 4 vols. (Chicago 1896), quoted in E. E. Irons, The Story of Rush Memorial College (Chicago,1953), pp.12-13. If you claim direct credit for someone else's citation you may be making yourself responsible for someone else's mistake.
 
You may also include a bibliography of your readings, in addition to the sources cited in reference. This is not required.
 
PITFALLS TO BE AVOIDED
 
The biographical "life of a great man or woman" paper is usually very hard to do. Unless you have access to unpublished letters/diaries/memoirs, etc., such papers become only an extended book review of the one or more autobiographies or biographies you consult. This results in a weak paper. You can ask good questions about a "great person" -- but a mini-biography is a poor idea.
 
Do not do an "operational analysis -- lessons learned" staff study. You will be drawing conclusions in your essay, but do not do the retrospective "praise and blame" that are the province of after-action reports. Modern reviews of some aspect of current research or practice tend not to be history papers. You may have a keen interest in some aspect of science -- especially if you majored in it in college. A recitative of recent advances, appropriate for the Annual Review of . . . will not meet the requirements of the course. If you find yourself writing "have been..." observed, defined, discovered, etc. instead of "were" you may be writing a review article, history is almost always written in the past tense. There are good questions, with an historical point of view, that can be asked about modern science. You will need to discuss this kind of paper with us.
 
The "cut and paste" assembly of paragraphs and quotations from a variety of secondary and tertiary sources (especially if they are not referenced) is a born loser as a paper. The reader rapidly discovers the lack of analysis, of thought, of drive to a conclusion and of any real evidence that your mind considered the issue at hand. You have to think about your topic; source materials are what you think about.
 
Do not try for an emotional or theatrical "tone" in the papers. Do not reach for a grandiloquent concluding paragraph or sentence. The purpose of the essay is not well met by "purple prose" or mawkish sentiment.
 
THE IMPROPER USE OF AND/OR FAILURE TO ACKNOWLEDGE SOURCE(S) IS PLAGIARISM. PLAGIARISM IS BOTH A COGNITIVE AND NON-COGNITIVE FAILURE AND WILL RESULT IN A FAILING GRADE.
 
HOW THE PAPERS ARE GRADED
 
Grades are assigned as follows: A grades will be between 90 and 100; B grades between 80 and 89; C grades between 70 and 79; D grades between 60 and 69; F is all grades below 60. Your grade will be a part of your Military Medicine and History Course and will count 30% of the final grade in that six credit course.
 
In general "A" papers are those that demonstrate thorough research and fully develop primary sources, they show evidence of an understanding of the context of the subject, clearly describe your analysis of the topic and draw upon the wide reading of a number of sources; they are written in crisp, expository prose, are logically organized, and are free of grammatical and syntactical errors.
 
"B" papers, though using some primary sources, rely more heavily on secondary sources, reflect a more intellectually shallow study, usually lacking in context and with a limited or stereotyped analysis, they may have some style and format problems or have a weak logical organization or have some grammatical and syntactical errors.
 
Those papers given a "C" use primarily secondary sources, have a wandering, confused, poorly organized narrative and style, a flawed logic and/or have many mistakes in grammar and syntax.
 
A "D" paper is a bad "C" paper. There will be only a few sources cited -- frequently all secondary or tertiary. The organization is haphazard and the writing, grammar and syntax are all error-ridden. There is no evidence of logical thought or attention to any historical theme in the essay.
 
You can get an "F" three ways: submit the paper late or plagiarize or write a bad "D" paper.
 
APPENDICES
 
"Bibliography of Suggested Readings"
 
"The Library Catalog"
 
LRC Home Page-
 
The National Library of Medicine - Home Page http://www.nlm.nih.gov
 
The National Archives - Home Page http://www.nara.gov
 
The Library of Congress Home Page http://lcweb.loc.gov
 
I hope you will enjoy the research and the writing of your paper. It should be a model for all the writing you will do in the future.
 
Dr. Joy and I are here to help you. Do not be bashful about asking us. We have an open door policy. You are not limited to one visit.
 
DALE C. SMITH, PH.D.
Course Director
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SUGGESTED READINGS
 
Ackernecht E. A short history of medicine. revised [2nd] ed. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1982.
 
American statistics index (ASI), 1974-. ASI is a guide to federal statistics by agency. ASI is issued in two parts; an index and an abstract. The primary organization of the index volume is by subject and/or name with a unique identifying number assigned to each collection of statistics identified. The number can be broken down into an agency number and a topic or code number identifying the individual volume. These codes will lead you to an abstract in the abstract volume of ASI which will identify the contents of the statistical document including the presentation through charts, tables, and other formats for collections of data. These materials are frequently found in government documents libraries, the Library of Congress is the national source but most major universities have an excellent government documents library. ASI also provides additional entry points through major statistical classes. Some experience with these categories (sex, race, age, and so on) is required to use ASI effectively.
 
Atwater EC. Women, surgeons and a worthy enterprise: the general hospital comes to upper New York state. In: The American general hospital: communities and social contexts, ed. Long DE, Golden J. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989;40-66.
 
Idem. Of grandes dames, surgeons, and hospitals: Batavia, New York, 1900-1940. J Hist Med 1990;45:414-51.
 
Bailyn B, Davis DB, Donald DH, et al. The great republic: a history of the American people. Boston: Little Brown, 1977.
 
Barrow MV, Niswander JD, Fortaine R, eds. Health and disease of American indians north of Mexico: a bibliography, 1800-1969. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972.
 
Bell WJ. Suggestions for research on the local history of medicine in the United States. Bull Hist Med 1945;17:460-476.
 
Besterman T. Medicine: a bibliography of bibliographies. Totowa, NJ: Rowan and Littlefield, 1971.
 
Blake J. A short title catalogue of eighteenth century printed books in the National Library of Medicine. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1979.
 
Blake JB, Roos C, eds. Medical reference works, 1679-1966; a selected bibliography. Chicago: Medical Library Association, 1967.
 
Bloomfield A. A bibliography of internal medicine: communicable diseases. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.
 
Idem. A bibliography of internal medicine: selected diseases. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
 
Brieger GH. History of medicine. In: Durbon PT ed. A guide to the culture of science, technology, and medicine. New York: Free Press, 1980;121-194.
 
Colville-Stewart S. History sources. In: Roper FW, Boorkman JA. Introduction to reference sources in the health sciences. Chicago: Medical Library Association, 1980;215-233.
 
Corsi P, Weindling P, eds. Information sources in the history of science and medicine. London: Butterworth Scientific, 1983.
 
Creaton H. Starting research in medical history: preparing the ground. J Soc Hist Med 1990;3:285-289.
 
Dodd DB, Doss WS. Historical statistics of the south, 1790-1970, a compilation of state-level census statistics for the sixteen states of Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1973. This collection, using both national and state level census data provides supplements for the southern states to the Bureau of Census data.
 
Duffy J. From humors to medical science: a history of American medicine. 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.
 
Dunglison R. A dictionary of medical science. Philadelphia: Lea, 1833, subsequent editions edited by his son, Richard, and then by Stedman TL.
 
Durling R. A catalogue of sixteenth century printed books in the National Library of Medicine. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1967.
 
Emmerson JS. Translations of medical classics: a list. Newcastle upon Tyne: University Library, 1965.
 
Erlen J. The history of the health care sciences and health care, 1700-1980. New York: Garland, 1984.
 
Flexner S, Flexner JT. William Henry Welch and the heroic age of American medicine. New York: Viking, 1941.
 
Fye WB. The literature and history of internal medicine, an annotated bibliography. Ann Int Med 1977;87:123-128.
 
Fye WB. The history of medicine: an annotated list of key reference works. Ann Int Med 1993;118:59-62.
 
Garrison FH. An introduction to the history of medicine. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1929.
 
Gaskell, E. Historical, biographical and bibliographic sources. In: Morton LT, Godbolt S eds. Information sources in the medical sciences. 3rd ed. London: Butterworth, 1984;463-490.
 
Gilbert J. A bibliography of articles on the history of American medicine compiled from: Writings on American History, 1902-1937. New York: New York Academy of Medicine, 1951.
 
Goldberg M. On writing and publishing medical fiction. Ann Int Med 1997;127:413-415.
 
Guthrie D. A history of medicine. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1946.
 
Hafner AW, Hunger FW, Tarpey EM. Directory of deceased American physicians, 1804-1929: a genealogical guide to over 149,000 medical practitioners providing brief biographical sketches drawn from the American Medical Association's deceased physician masterfile, 2 vols. Chicago, Ill.: American Medical Association, 1993.
 
Holloway L. Medical obituaries, American physicians' bibliographical notices in selected medical journals before 1907. New York: Garland Publishers, 1981.
 
Hoyt RS, Chodorow S. Europe in the middle ages, 3rd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Janovich, 1976.
 
Hutchinson J. Retrospective memoranda and index. The New Sydenham Society, No. 196. London: H.K. Lewis for the Society, 1911.
 
Index to international statistics, 1983-. IIS is an effort to provide statistical publications of international organizations it focuses primarily on economic development although includes sections on health.
 
Kaufman M, Galishoff S, Savitt TL, eds. Dictionary of American medical biographies, 2 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984.
 
Kelly HA, Burrage WL, eds. Dictionary of American medical biography, 2nd ed. New York: Appleton, 1928.
 
King LS. Scientific Writing. Chicago: American Medical Association, 1968.
 
Knapton EJ. France: An interpretive history. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971.
 
Krivatsy P. A catalogue of seventeenth century books in the National Library of Medicine. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1989.
 
Lechevalier HA, Solotorovsky M. Three centuries of microbiology. New York: Dover Publications, 1974.
 
Major RH. Classic descriptions of disease: with biographical sketches of the authors. 3rd ed. reprint Springfield, IL: Thomas, 1965, c. 1945.
 
Maulitz RC. Burn this book? Bull Hist Med 1997;71:112-119, (for bibliographic sources).
 
Idem. Graphical materials on line. Bull Hist Med 1997;71:316-319.
 
McCoy FN. Researching and writing in history: a practical handbook for students. Berkely: University of California Press, 1974.
 
McNeil, WN. The rise of the west. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
 
Meynell GG. The two sydenham societies: a history and bibliography of the medical classics published by the Sydenham Society and the New Sydenham Society. Folkestone, England: Winterdown Books, 1985.
 
Miller G. Bibliography of the history of medicine of the United States and Canada 1939-1960. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964. Dr. Miller had compiled bibliographies on an annual basis for a number of years before the cumulative list was published. The annual bibliographies for 1961-1963 can be consulted in the Bulletin of the history of medicine.
 
Miller G. Bibliography of the history of medicine of the United States and Canada - 1961. Bull Hist Med 1962;36:535-570.
 
Idem. Bibliography of the history of medicine of the United States and Canada - 1962. Bull hist med 1963;37:532-567.
 
Idem. Bibliography of the history of medicine of the United States and Canada - 1963. Bull hist med 1964;38:538-577.
 
Mitchell BR. European Historical Statistics, 1750-1970. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. The Mitchell collection provides the single easily available source of statistical data for 23 European countries including a section on vital statistics.
 
Norman JM, ed. Morton's medical bibliography: an annotated check-list of texts illustrating the history of medicine. (Garrison and Morton.) 5th ed. Brookfield, VT: Gower, 1991.
 
Norton MB, Katzman DM, Escott PD, et al. A people and a nation: a history of the United States. Boston: Houghton Mifflen, 1982.
 
Osler W. Bibliotheca osleriana: a catalogue of books illustrating the history of medicine and science. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1969.
 
Palmer RR, Colton J. A history of the modern world. 6th ed. New York: Knopf, 1984.
 
Porter R ed. Cambridge illustrated history of medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
 
Porter R, Wear A eds. Problems in the history of medicine. New York: Croom Helm and Methune, 1987.
 
Rutkow I. The history of surgery in the United States, 1775-1900. San Francisco: Norman Pub., 1988.
 
Seaman LCB. A new history of England, 410-1975.Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press Ltd., Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1982.
 
Singer C, Underwood A. A short history of medicine. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
 
Statistical reference index, 1980-. The SRI is an effort to do for state and private, particularly, non-profit private sector, statistical issuers what ASI does for the federal government. There are microform collections of SRI documents which make available statistical publications of state government agencies, various institutes, associations, universities and independent research centers.
 
Tonelli G. A short title list of subject dictionaries of the sixteenth seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as aids to the history of ideas. London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1971.
 
United States. Bureau of the Census. The Statistical History Of The United States From Colonial Times To The Present. Introduction and user's guide by Ben J. Wattenberg. New York: Basic Books, 1976. Data collected by the Bureau of Census of the United States provides the summary in 24 chapters of available statistics in American history. There are chapters on vital statistics, health and medical care which are particularly valuable in the history of medicine.
 
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine and Related Sciences, London. Subject catalogue of the history of medicine and related sciences. 18 vols. München: Kraus International Publications, 1980.
 
THE LIBRARY CATALOG
 
In order to use any library it is essential to be familiar with that library's catalog. The purpose of the catalog is to communicate essential facts briefly. The essential facts in a catalog record include the bibliographic description, i.e., the author, the title, and so forth of a publication; verbal representation of the subject content, i.e., the subject heading; and a call number, a classification based upon some system usually of subject content but which also contains a means of distinguishing any particular item. The call number is therefore usually in two parts -- a class number and a book number. The books of the LRC are cataloged with a modified Library of Congress system; that is, the class numbers are first alphabetical and then numerical, as opposed to the Dewey Decimal system in which class numbers are numerical. We will consider each of these component parts in turn, but be aware that a catalog can come in any number of physical formats.
 
The earliest catalog format is probably the book catalog. It lists the holdings and collections in book form and it probably evolved from inventory lists. It had the advantage of portability and ease of duplication; however as collections began to grow, particularly in the modern period, the catalogs went out of date very quickly. A very useful book catalog, from your point of view, is the Index Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Library (NLM), published in multiple series as the library grew. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the card catalog evolved; it was rapidly adopted for flexibility and the ease with which it could be changed and updated. The size of the cards varied considerably until the twentieth century when the Library of Congress standardized cards by selling 3 x 5 cards. For about 75 or 80 years the card catalog dominated, although small numbers of book catalogs continued to be published.
 
In the very recent past, automated catalog records, publicly available either as microform or a book, but based upon machine readable records (computers) became increasingly common. Today, most libraries have an on line, instant access, computerized catalog. This is built on a local data base; many of these data bases are shared in national networks. The Library of Congress, as well as public and private consortiums, provide exchanges of information. These data bases are essential for your inter-library loan requests but they are primarily the tools of librarians, who use them if our library does not have a work you need. (However, you may check other library catalogs in the area using INTERNET.) The LRC and the NLM both have automated catalog records with an on-line capability. The public on-line format is a direct decedent of the catalog card. You may search under a variety of entry points, title, author and subject being the most common. A very useful option in the LRC catalog is a "key word search."
 
You may need several search modes to determine if the library in question has what you need. There are limitations to the catalog, the most obvious being that no library or network contains everything. Even if the item you want is in the library, it may not be in the catalog or you may not be able to retrieve it based upon the information you have. Every record must have one access point called the main entry. It should have other added entries but standards vary. One of the most trying difficulties is that works of shared responsibility --multiple or corporate authorship -- are extremely difficult to catalog. Some will be listed by the authors if there is a collective name for the authors. Examples include corporate collected activities such as specific conference proceedings and papers, or sound recordings such as albums by the Beatles; all other works produced by corporate bodies will be listed only under the corporate body as an awed entry, the main entry will be the title. Works of mixed responsibility will provide problems for you if you are looking for translations. The main entry is the person immediately responsible for the content, usually the principle author, but the determination of who or what is immediately responsible for the work is sometimes difficult. Between an original author and a translator, the original author should be the main entry, but between an original author and the adapter of the work, the adapter will probably be the main entry. This may be particularly important to you in looking for abstracts or editions of work of ancient or medieval authors if you happen to be working in that area.
 
Subject cataloging of a book, frequently the most useful to a student, is also the most difficult and ambiguous area for the cataloger in the library. Some books are relatively straightforward. That is books that deal with a single subject, but even there defining that subject will be problematic if there were not controlled numbers of the subjects available. Therefore almost all libraries, ours included, uses a closed subject list or Thesaurus; there are a limited number of terms that may be used for subject cataloging. We use the medical subject headings, or MESH, system, which may be found listed in a large book near the computer terminals. The headings are not intuitively obvious -- for example, "cancer" is under "neoplasia." These subjects can be modified (there are rules for doing that, read the introduction to the book). A work is always cataloged under the most specific, inclusive subject heading. One solution to subject cataloging difficulties is multiple subject headings, but every subject heading requires additional effort, additional thought and additional space within the catalog or computer. The compound subjects are, without question, the most difficult; e.g., the application of one thing to another, the use of something, the influence or impact of one thing on another, the bias of subjects for a particular audience, or a comparison in which two otherwise independent subjects are compared. It is almost always essential to search under all aspects of such subjects. For "population trends in history" it might be necessary to search under "demography", "population" and "history". The problems of impact or influence of medicine in literature might oblige you to look under multiple or compound subject headings; e.g. biographies of authors for health information, literary criticism for analysis of various writers, etc. Similarly, the foreign relations of two countries might oblige you to look under foreign relations subdivision of the separate countries as subjects. However you have to think about your subject. If you want data on the "training of enlisted hospital corpsman," you will not find -- in any library -- such a subject heading. You have to think of the general case -- "medical education"; "military medicine"; "military medical manuals" and so on. Similarly, if you want to know the history of obstetrical forceps, you will not find a listing under "forceps, obstetric." You must look for "obstetrics, history" and its variants, and then consult those books for the forceps data. Use the subject catalog and be creative. It will save you a great deal of time and no end of frustration if you read the introduction to the subject heading book to learn the rules.
 
There are, however, certain bibliographies and indices, such as the Subject Catalogue of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, which do not use a controlled thesaurus. People decide to use various subject entries for each entry at the moment they make the entry. There is some regularity to it, but you have to be really creative in search of a subject. The best catalogs and bibliographies provide you with "see" and "see also" references to help in subject searching, but to actually find a document it is necessary to look under the right element for the document. "See" references are used if the subject is filed elsewhere;"see also" references indicate broader or narrower divisions of your subject.
 
Another problem is that references may be given to you in an incomplete form. For example, there is a book on the Causes of Fevers by William Budd which I edited, which is in our library, but which you cannot find through our catalog under any of those three entries. It was also a supplement to the Bulletin of the History of Medicine in 1984 and if you check under the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Henry E. Sigerist Supplements, No. 9, you will find that the book exists and is shelved with the journals, but it is exceedingly difficult to find the work. This is true of many monographs issued in particular series associated with serials.
 
By the same token, a journal article is impossible to find in our library (or most others) by means of the catalog. All you can do is find whether we own that particular journal title and the range of holdings of that title. It is therefore very important to have complete references so that you are able to search appropriately for the material for which you are looking. Always check references carefully to be sure you have all the parts you need.
 
A journal reference has an author(s) and article title, a journal title (usually printed in different type), a date, a volume and inclusive pages. Frequently a journal title will be abbreviated-- you may have to find a key to tell you what it is. You never look in a library for a journal article under the title of the article or the author; you will not find it. Always look under the name of the journal. Many journals have existed for decades, some for centuries; it is therefore imperative that you have a complete reference. Determine the full and accurate name of the journal, the year and volume number. Find the journal (or its call number) and get the volume you need -- then turn to the pages specified and hope the article you find there is by the author you wanted. If everything was correct, it will be; if not, check the volume and year and then check your reference in both your original source and in other bibliographies or indices.
 
In extremely large libraries, like the National Library of Medicine, and particularly those with closed stacks, journals have call numbers just like books. Since you may not go to the shelf to look for the journal, it is absolutely essential that you get the complete and accurate call number. The National Library of Medicine journal call numbers are recorded in their catalog which is used to generate a request. At the National Library of Medicine generate a complete call slip -- title, volume, date, and pages as well as call number. For many journals the volume has been split in binding and the exact date or pages insure you will get the portion you need. In the LRC, journals are filed alphabetically by title, thus Journal of the American Medical Association will be filed before Journal of Thoracic Surgery, not before the Journal of Biological Chemistry. If you are using Inter-Library Loan, you do not need a call number; our librarians will identify it for you; but a complete and accurate reference is even more important.
 
In the LRC, books are filed by their call numbers but it is important to note there are three collections of call numbers -- reference books in the open shelves of the first floor, rare books in the locked shelves (see the LRC staff) and everything else filed on the third floor. The class number (1st combination of letters and numerals) is a subject specific designator. You might want to look nearby on the shelves for similar works. The first letter is the broad category, "W" is medicine -- most of the LRC is therefore "W" class books. The second letter is the sub class, "WZ" is medical history. The numbers are subdivisions within. The subclass "WO" is surgery, "W011" is the history of surgery, "WS" is pediatrics, "WS11" is the history of pediatrics. The second part of the call number (the book number) is specific to a given record. It is also alphanumeric. The first letter is the first letter of the author's surname (except for biographies when the subject's surname is used). The numbers are selected from a standard table to provide unique designators for a given author. The subsequent letters are from the title of the work to distinguish works of the same author in the same subject. If there are multiple editions, the date of the edition will be given. To find books in the LRC follow the call number: "A" is near the Board of Regent's Room and "Z" is near the Medical History section offices. Everything else is in between. If you have a problem check your call number, then recheck the LRC computer catalog to determine the availability of the work -- it may be checked out. If you still have a problem ask the LRC staff for help.

Resources