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x, 1 leaf, 1195 pp; 513 text figures. Original cloth. Near Fine, in very torn dust jacket. First Edition. Pencil signature "George R. Minot" on front flyleaf. The pencil is faint, but visible and definitely Minot's writing. The names of 23 Harvard doctors are listed on the title page: Arthur W. Allen, David Cheever, Edward D. Churchill, Harvey Cushing, William P. Graves, Robert B. Greenough, John Homans, Gilbert Horrax, Daniel Fiske Jones, William E. Ladd, George A. Leland, Howard A. Lothrop, Richard H. Miller, Edward H. Nichols, Robert B. Osgood, Charles Allen Porter, Tracy J. Putnam, Lyman G. Richards, Edward P. Richardson, Channing C. Simmons, J. Herbert Waite, Wyman Whittemore, and Philip D. Wilson. Quoting from Homans's Preface: "The aim of this book, for which Dr. Harvey Cushing supplied the inspiration, is to record and amplify lectures now given by members of the surgical department of the Harvard Medical School. These lectures, and such other material as the various instructors were willing to supply, have been edited, reinforced with historical material and illustrations." John F. Fulton on Homans's book (pp. 543-544 of the biography of Harvey Cushing): "with John Homans' 'Textbook,' which has influenced surgical thinking in the country for fifteen years [1931-1946], it is probable that the Brigham became for a time the most influential surgical center in the United States." On p. 602 Fulton quotes from Cushing's review of Homans's book: "Fresh from the press, an entirely new order of surgical textbook has appeared. Textbooks of surgery, like other textbooks, have, for the most part, been written at the behest of some publisher who has seduced by flattery his unsuspecting victim to undertake a task the magnitude of which was beyond the scope of his imagination. Here, on the other hand, is a book written for a purpose, long planned and for which a publisher finally had to be sought. The generality of works of this kind had been from the outset, or has subsequently grown into, copious tomes in which one might conveniently and profitably search for new information or refresh one's memory on a topic hazily recalled. They have been, in other words, most of them, carefully prepared and all-inclusive compilations of facts and in this respect have been highly useful. . . . The brief historical introduction to several of the chapters will be particularly appealing to many and will serve as a lure to pull by the nose even the reluctant undergraduate through the more detailed subject matter which follows. These preliminary notes were apparently an after-thought on the author's part during the progress of the work and he may at another time come to fill in the gaps for some of the sections not so introduced. The publisher has done his part of the work admirably. The book is small, compact, businesslike in appearance, and its pages turn well. Both the publisher and the author have resisted the temptation to make a picture book by employing color plates and photographic reproductions, and in restricting themselves to the use of line drawings they have been able greatly to reduce the price of the volume, for which medical students will be duly appreciative.".
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