in our search; then the bound volumes of the Index Medicus are very valuable.

This Index Medicus is a publication that was current for a number of years, but was given up for lack of patronage, after it had reached the twenty-second volume. At one time previous to this it almost ceased publication, but an effort was made to revive it, and a number of societies and individuals agreed to contribute $25.00 a year to insure its continuance. This Medical Society contributed $25.00 a year toward this fund, and that investment was for us a very good one in this sense, that it brought us into notice as one of the smaller societies contributing $25.00 a year for this purpose and helped us later in completing the set. We now have a complete set of this work. The publisher's price of back numbers was $12.00 a volume, but we succeeded in getting a few volumes at $5.00 each, and we had some of them given to us. This is a valuable work, but the next which we will consider is, I think, for us still more valuable I refer to the "Index Catalogue of the SurgeonGeneral's Library."

This library is in Washington, as you know, and is under the direction of the War Department. It subscribes for every medical periodical that is published anywhere in the world, and in any language whatever, including all special journals of different medical sects. A few years ago the librarian spoke to me about the Osteopathic journals, and said that he considered them valuable as a matter of medical history, and so subscribed for them all. I asked him if he was getting the Osteopathic journal published in Wilkes-Barre, and he said, "No, I did not know there was one." I said, "There is one published right along," and he immediately subscribed for it. This is an illustration of how they take everything they can possibly get.

All the articles that are published are indexed in this Index Catalogue. That is what makes it so valuable to other libraries. The library of the Surgeon-General has more than a hundred and fifty thousand bound volumes, exclusive of pamphlets. While the Index Catalogue is not a complete index of all medical literature, it is a complete index of everything in the

Surgeon-General's library. It does not go back a hundred years and index everything written, but it indexes everything that they have.

We acquired this by buying the first eight volumes, paying the low price of $1.00 a volume. Some of the earlier volumes were hard to obtain, especially volume four.

A bookseller in Washington told me he would pay $10.00 a volume for volume four, for as many of them as he could get. Finally the New York Academy of Medicine completed our set by giving us volume four as a donation. All of the volumes of the second series we are receiving regularly from the War Department, as issued, our library having been placed upon the mailing list through the kindness of Hon. Morgan B. Williams, our former representative in Congress.

But how shall we use it? Some one said to me not long ago, "I just supposed that that was one of those government publications that no one cared for," but when I showed him how to use it, he saw at once how valuable it was.

A few words first as to the arrangement of our bound volumes of periodicals. They are now all arranged in alphabetical order, beginning at the left hand corner of case A, and passing around to the right. If you want the American Journal of Medical Sciences, you will find it in this left hand corner. American Journal of Obstetrics follows, and others beginning with A.

The

We have here the Boston Medical Journal, and others in B. The Dublin Medical Journal, the Edinburgh Journal, etc., which begins there and follows over into the second series of cases. We thus continue around in alphabetical order. The volumes are arranged according to the beginning of their titles; for instance, the Journal of the American Medical Association is not under A, but under J. This is the rule in the Academy of Medicine in New York, and I think in most large medical libraries; their periodicals are arranged according to this plan. Here is an exception, however. The Medical Record is so large that it would not fit in the shelves in its appropriate place; it is not where it should be in alphabetical order. You will

find it just below. It should go ahead of the New Orleans Journal, but would not fit in, because it is too large. You will always find at the beginning of any new series a shelf label giving the name of the periodical. Understanding now the arrangement of the books, we are ready to proceed. Suppose we want to look up any article in the Index Catalogue. Take for example the subject of Dr. Roe's paper, read a few weeks ago; I take this one, "Absence of the Uterus," because it is rather rare. Turn in the Index Catalogue to uterus. I find here six columns of titles of articles on that subject. A great many of these occur in foreign journals and others that we have not, but many of them we have. I have marked a number of these titles and the first one I find is an article by E. P. Bennett, in the American Journal of Medical Sciences, in 1841. The next marked in one by Blackman, in American Journal of Medical Sciences, in 1845. So on through the list, I find on that subject, titles of twenty-nine articles in different medical journals that are in this room. But if you look on the back of this volume of the Index Catalogue, you will find by its date that it brings us down to 1894. If we want to look up articles published on this subject since 1894, we must turn to the Index Medicus and begin with volume 18. Turning back to the index, under the subject of Uterus, we find a number of articles, the first, on page 45, is in the Philadelphia Polyclinic volume 4 and 5; this we have. So we look on through this, and find the different journals in which these articles occur. We thus find thirty-eight or forty articles on this subject occurring in volumes which we have here on our shelves.

The Index Catalogue is very valuable in a library like this, where we do not have assistants constantly present to look up articles that we want. I will be very glad to have you ask any questions, if I am not perfectly clear, on this subject, before we stop.

You may look up a subject and find an article in some journal which we ought to have. It may be just what you want, and perhaps we have the volume that contains it. We have some complete sets of journals; for instatce, the American Journal

of the Medical Sciences. This we have from 1824 down to the present time. The London Lancet we have from its beginning, in 1823, almost complete, but not quite; we lack a few volumes only. We have the Edinburgh Medical Journal through all of its earlier volumes except volumes 6 and 20.

We have a large number of complete sets; some are not complete, but we will try to fill them as rapidly as we can. That is the real work of a Medical Society Library. Not to purchase all the new books so much, but for the purpose of looking up original articles, we need our files of periodicals completed.

An article was published recently in one of the journals which I have here on the desk, which emphasizes this point, that the legitimate work of a medical library is to complete its files of periodicals. While we are not able to do that fully, we have done a great deal without having bought any journals, except a few odd numbers to finish volumes which were nearly all complete. In this work we have been greatly aided by contributions from the New York Academy of Medicine, and from the Association of Medical Libraries.

One member asked in December for a certain article; I looked in the Index Catalogue and found two or three articles on this subject; one was in the Virginia Medical Monthly, volume 4, the very volume of this set which we did not have bound, but we did have ten numbers of volume 4, unbound, and one of the numbers contained the article which he wanted. I sent immediately to New York for the two other numbers, and we now have the set complete. We have spent less than $5.00 in purchasing such odd numbers as this.

This coming year we will probably spend more, but in the main, we will get those things given us as far as possible in exchange for other duplicates which we may have.

In regard to new books, we have bought very few. The society has appropriated each year a moderate sum and we have not always spent the full amount appropriated, as we have not thought it advisable to buy many new books in the present state of our finances, but if any member wishes the society to buy any book, we would be glad to have the title given us and we will see that the book is purchased.

What are the needs of the library? We need the co-operation of all of you. Dr. Purple, in giving an address before an association in New York a few years ago, made the remark that we need the help of all the members of the society, and that it is a mistaken idea that we should purchase only the new things; it is the old things we want, and he said that no scrap of medical material should be wasted or thrown away, no matter how unimportant it seems to one, it is really important, perhaps, as a matter of medical fact or medical history. He describes how he rescued from the scrap heap two important publications, one giving a description of diphtheria, in 1773, and another giving an account of an epidemic of the same in New York in 1770. This book had been sold for one-eighth of one cent, and was on a scrap heap ready to be taken to a paper mill when Dr. Purple rescued it. The Academy of Medicine, in whose library the volume now is, would probably not dispose of it to-day at any price. We have on our own shelves a work on malignant ulcerous sore throat by Huxham, published in 1775, this is no doubt diphtheria. Do not throw away your medical literature until you find out whether we can use it. We do not want, for instance, any copies of the Medical Record or of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, or of other sets that we have complete, but we would be glad before you throw away any of your old medical literature, to know what you have.

We need your help in completing this file of current medical literature. We did have on file the Boston Medical Journal and the London Lancet, but they are discontinued. If some one of the many who are now taking the Medical Record would discontinue it and take the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, and others co-operate with different journals, we could complete here a splendid set of medical journals at no expense to the society, and no additional expense really to the individuals. What we want is co-operation on the part of the members.

We need, also, your suggestions in regard to new books. Any that you want, suggest to the committee and the committee will buy them. You can help us also, by getting contributions