Volume 1

Catalogue of the library of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London.

  • Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Catalogue of the library of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    lower case Roman [Temperate Man] to distinguisli it from tlie capitals used for the names of authors. 9. As to Initial Capitals, the rule has been generally adopted of con- fining their use to the important words of the title and of especially avoiding them in secondary portions of it. These Capitals when care- fully kept down in this manner have all the effect of italics in making distinct the subject of the book without the piebald appearance which too liberal a use of the latter is apt to produce. The omission of all capitals in titles (one of the discussed questions of the day) is of very doubtful expediency on its own ground, but when the large number of German works in the Library is considered, subject to the special laws of that language relative to the use of Capitals, it will be seen that any rule of this kind applied to other languages only would give a prominence to German works totally out of character with uniformity of system. 10. A difficult question in alphabetical arrangement is the value to be given to the German Umlaut or modification of the vowels, a, o, ii. This inflection, following the rule of the Linguistic Dictionaries of the Germans, has not been allowed a distinct alphabetical position, but takes its place with the simple vowels, as iu Biirensprung, Baretti, Borettus, Borner, &c.; but when German writers, from having wi'itten in Latin, or from other causes, use the full diphthongal form ae, oe, ue, this rule cannot be followed, as it would create anomalies of arrangement with regard to the same form in other languages which cannot be so placed, viz. as in the names of Aetius, Boerhaave, Ocellus, Foesius, Gueneau, Guerin, Guersant, Haen, Hoeveu, Laennec, &c. The most used of these two orthographies in each name has been adopted (ii or ae), and cross references are given from the other form to avoid difficulty or omission. 11. Letters indicating professional or honorary titles, such as M.D., F.R.S., &c., have generally been omitted on the ground of their ephemeral value, and the impossibility of distributing them with strict fidelity among works published in so many different countries and at so great a variety of periods. The use of these letters would not have ensured identification, for in some cases where two authors of the same name occur they have possessed similar honorary titles. In the few instances where they have aided identification they are inserted. Other words added for the purpose of distinguishing one author from another of the same name, or for more precise recognition are printed in italics, but any attempt to give the Catalogue the additional character of a short biographical dictionary is entirely avoided as supererogatory. 12. In the difficult task of abbreviating title pages of inconvenient length it has been made a rule to adhere to their exact words (embracing