The Principles and Practice of Medicine

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1899. Third edition. 8vo. 1181, [1], [2, ads] pp. Publisher's green cloth, rebacked, ex-library with spine marking crudely effaced; book-plate Presentation copy, inscribed "A.J. Nellis with kind regards of Wm Osler. 5.25.00.""Osler’s textbook was the best English work on medicine of its time" (Garrison-Morton). “This book went through sixteen editions in its fifty-five years in print and gained and maintained a place in English, American, and even continental practice only comparable with that held by the treatise of Sir Thomas Watson (1843) in the preceding decades. The clear, concise, attractive presentation and the many citations from history and the classics gave it a unique place among scientific books with an essentially literary flavor” (Golden & Roland, p. 136) For a discussion of the third edition, see Richard Golden, A History of William Osler's The Principles and Practice of Medicine (Montreal, 2004), pp. 68-71. REFERENCE: Bibliotheca Osleriana 3546 (& 3544 for Osler’s account of writing the book); Garrison-Morton 2231