Samuel J. Rogal; comp. 258 Pages. New York: Greenwood Press; 1992. $65.00.

As information technology becomes more accessible to the common user, the classical annotated bibliography may come to seem a relic from an earlier age. Even so, the historian of medicine, whether amateur or professional, must find the familiar bibliographic works, standing within easy reach, to be comfortable companions. More than that, with such works as Morton's Medical Bibliography and Bibliotheca Osleriana, the real risk is losing oneself in browsing when there is work to be done! Professor Rogal has offered us just such a tender trap.

His bibliography will prove useful within its strictly defined limits: medically related books and bound volumes published in Great Britain between 1660 and 1800. If one forgets these limits, he or she may look in vain for William Harvey's De motu cordis published in Frankfurt in 1628, too early and not in Britain. An English translation published in London in 1673 is not noted; the entries presumably, and understandably, include only first editions. Thomas Browne is also missing; his Religio medici is too early, and Certain Miscellany Tracts (683) must have been considered nonmedical and inappropriate, but A Letter to a Friend, upon occasion of the Death of his Intimate Friend, published posthumously in 1690, should have qualified.

Although 2057 entries are included, the author acknowledges the work to be comprehensive rather than complete. It is much more complete for British books and pamphlets in this period than is Morton's book. The subject headings will seem strange to physicians, who must wonder at "General Surgery, Wounds, Dissection, Embalming, Rupture, Testicles," but they are understandable. The notes tend to be biographical rather than bibliographical, undoubtedly reflecting their sources and the author's broad humanistic interests. A medical historian might hope for more content than biography and would miss both in those listings (perhaps 40%) that are not annotated. The place and date of publication for each volume appear but not the publisher. This is a defect, because publishers in this period were known, but it is not a fatal flaw.

The compiler has contributed a useful and scholarly bibliography for those interested in the seventeenth and eighteenth century origins of modern medicine, especially medicine in the English-speaking world. For 258 pages of text the price seems high.