A HOUSE-SURGEON'S MEMORIES OF JOSEPH LISTER ST CLAIR THOMSON Frontispiece 93 D'ARCY POWER 109 JONATHAN WRIGHT 126 DAVID RIESMAN OSLER'S INFLUENCE ON MEDICAL LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED STATES REGINALD FITZ HOWARD A. KELLY Original articles are published only with the understanding that they are contributed exclusively to the ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY. Manuscripts offered for publication, books for review, and all correspondence relating to the editorial management should be addressed to the Editor, Dr. Francis R. Packard, 302 South 19th Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Communications regarding subscriptions, reprints, and all matters regarding the business management of the ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY should be addressed to the Publisher, Paul B. Hoeber, 67-69-71 East 59th Street, New York City. The ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY is published quarterly; four issues comprising one volume. The subscription price is $8.00 per year. Single numbers $2.50. Entered as second class matter, June 2, 1917, at the Post Office, New York, New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1920, by Paul B. Hoeber. A HOUSE-SURGEON'S MEMORIES OF JOSEPH LISTER1 (Born April 5, 1827. Died February 10, 1912) By SIR ST CLAIR THOMSON, M.D. LONDON, S WE ALL know, Robert Browning lived a great part of his life in Italy and died there. Many years before his death another of our greatest poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley, was drowned off the coast of Leghorn and lies buried in the Cimitero degli Allori, just inside the walls of ancient Rome. This was some time before Browning settled in Florence; thus it came to pass that when, once in Italy, Browning made a friend who had known Shelley personally he was so overcome by the thought that he was looking into the eyes of one who had actually gazed on Shelley, in his very habit as he lived, that he wrote of it in these lines: "And, did you once see Shelley plain, It has struck me that before the genera- ENGLAND tion to which I belong passes away, it is a duty, as it is a very grateful task, for those who once saw Lister plain, to put on record some of our personal recollections and impressions of that great man; great, not only in that his name as a scientific surgeon and a benefactor of humanity will live forevermore, but in that he exerted on those who came into personal contact with him an influence, a devotion, and an elevation of thought and soul that had in it a touch of inspiration. In commenting on a paper of mine on "Shakespeare and Medicine," that well-known authority on Shakespeare, Sir Sidney Lee, said that Shakespeare, after God, had created most in the cosmic universe. I venture to say that, as an instrument in God's hands, Lister has wrought more for the relief of suffering, for the security of life, for the prevention of anxiety, and for the promotion of happiness than any one any one man who has ever trod this earth. And, in addition, those who chanced to come near him caught glimpses Physicians, Philadelphia, on June 14, 1919. |