The Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh:Sale of its Library at Sotheby's*

BY HELEN CRAWFORD, Librarian

William S. Middleton Medical LibraryUniversity of Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

ABSTRACTThe library of the Royal Medical Society of

Edinburgh, which has been in existence for nearly250 years, was sold by Sotheby & Co. of Londonat three auction sales during 1969. The authordescribes her attendance at the three sales, withemphasis on the most valuable items sold and theconsiderable acquisitions made for the MiddletonMedical Library of the University of Wisconsin.Concluding observations concern some of thepractical problems of acquiring antiquarian booksat auction.

THE following is the account of a protractedcourtship of a lot of books, with all the con-ventional elements of suspense, competition,pursuit over great distances, and, finally, con-quest. If the jingle of gold seems to serve asthe theme for this rhapsody, one must acceptthe melancholy fact that monetary considera-tions inevitably enter into such romantic af-fairs.

It all started three years ago with a queryfrom the firm of Bertram Rota, Ltd. in London:would we be interested in buying a library, arather famous medical library? Sitting in abrand new library building with a suitablyhoused historical collection and gift funds inthe bank-although not by any means enough,as was soon apparent-I put out the first cau-tious feeler. The library proved to be that ofthe Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. Onelook at its 1896 printed catalog was enough.Even though, as it turned out, a considerableblock of botanical works had been disposed of,this catalog is still a fair representation of animpressive library, ranging over more than fourcenturies of scientific publishing.

* This article is based upon a shorter versionwhich appeared in Wisconsin Medical AlumniQuarterly 10: 1-4, Spring 1970.

During the months of advance and with-drawal when the fate of the library was beingdecided, I checked holdings, looked up prices,estimated the resale value of the duplicates anddiscussed the desirability of the purchase withfaculty members and bibliographers. It becamealmost a matter of surprise to look up any im-portant medical figure of the last four centuriesand find not a single listing in the library's cata-log. There was no doubt of the value of the col-lection but also little doubt that the sale pricewas likely to strain any library's immediate re-sources. (The quarter of a million dollars even-tually realized confirms this assessment).As is usual when a decision must be made by

committees, the negotiations (if such a formalterm can be used for these preliminaries) wereprotracted. Finally a message from London an-nounced that the decision had been reached:the original hope to sell the library intact, topreserve its continuity even in a transatlanticsetting, had been relinquished. The librarywould be sold at a series of auctions by Sotheby& Co. However, a number of books of whichthere were no other copies in Edinburgh wereto be retained.Founded in 1734, the Royal Medical So-

ciety (to quote from the auction catalog) "sur-vives as the oldest scientific society in Scotland,the oldest existing undergraduate medical so-ciety and the only undergraduate society to holda Royal Charter." During its long history theSociety not only bought contemporary worksfor communal use but also acquired notabletitles by gift from its members and from col-leagues abroad. Even as early as 1812, the cata-log of the library listed the Rhazes of Vesalius(1544) and his Chirurgia magna of 1569. More-over, in two and a half centuries, even trivia

Bull. Med. Libr. Ass. 58 (4) October 1970 531

HELEN CRAWFORD

FIG. 1.-Part of the former library, Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh

FIG. 2.-Present library

become rarities. Displaced from its quarters byredevelopment and lacking funds for upkeepand supervision, the Society reluctantly decidedthat a historical collection of this value was anunsuitable responsibility for an undergraduatemedical society, and should be sold. A 1676Sydenham is not much consolation to a stu-dent who needs a 1967 Cecil. (Figs. 1 and 2show the previous and the current library read-ing rooms.)Our advisors agreed that we should capitalize

on the time already spent in checking and eval-uating the collection to acquire as many suit-able titles at the auctions as we could afford.Issuance of the catalog for the first sale, Febru-ary 11-12, 1969, brought a call from London:because of the lotting, our agent despaired ofmaking the necessary judgments without per-sonal consultation. Could I attend? Receipt ofthe familiar green-covered catalog, barely threeweeks before the date of the sale, confirmed thedifficulty: although most lots had some con-

Bull. Med. Libr. Ass. 58 (4) October 1970532

MEDICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY SALE AT SOTHEBY'S

CATALOGUEOF

AN IMPORTANT COLLECTIONOF

MEDICAL BOOKSTuze Property of

THa ROYAL MEDICAL SOCIETY, EDINBURGIITHIRD AND LAST PORTION

M1 TO ZAND APPLNDIX OF BOOKS OMITTED ETC. FROM PRFVIOUS SECTIONS

COM PRISING

PARACELSLS. Opera, 1603-1605. PARKINSON. Essatrut the shakinig palst. 1817.RIOL.ANUS, OpuscsI/a anatontica nava. 1649, ROLLO, Diabetes. 1797, RUSH.Ott rellow feter, 1794. SCARPS. Tabl/tae tteurotlogicae. 1794, SLOANE, Catalogusplanttarusn itt Jatnaica. 1696. SNApE. Attatottny of tite horse, 1683. SNOW, OnchlIoroforol, 1858, SPIC.LLILS. Opera. 1645. SWASIMERDAM, Biblia tnaturae.1737-38, SYDENIiAMI, Obsertatiottes tsledicae. 1676, TENNENT. Diseases ofI irginia, 1742, THACKRAH. Efltects of professiotis ott health, 1831, TROTTER.Medicitne nautica. 1797-1803, VESALICS [Paraphrase ott Rlhazes] 1544, VIRCHOW.Cellularpatltologie, 1858, WHARTON, Adenographia, 1656. BURNS, On the heart.1809, HAVERS. Osteologia nova. 1691, HILLARY, Diseases of Barbadoes, 1766.A COLLECTION OF PAMPIHLETS ON ANAESTHESIA AND GYNAEC'OLOGY BY SIR JAMESY. SIMPSON, SETS OF PERIODICALS INCLUDING SYDENHAM AND NEW SYDENHAMSOCIETY, RUNS OF THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON FROM

1667 AND OF THF. ROSAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH FROM 1857. ETC.BOOKS ON ANATOMY, MIDWSIFERY. PSYCHIATRY, NEUROLOGY, OPTHALMOLOGY,

PHARMAr OLOGjY. SLURGERY. TROPICAL MEDICINE, ETC.

WHICH WILL BE SOLD BY AUCTION BY

SOTHEBY & CO.P. C. WII A A.R.A.H -. J. B. KDF,, T. H. CLARICE C. G.-,Au R. J. RtCKFnP. s1.H. POLLN G. D. LLvsILLrv R. P. T. CA.. M. J. WED LORD Jo", K..eF I.L OF WFSTHII,,.1eI J. L. M-- (L,. A.) H. M. Rosts P. M. R. Pot,ey J. M. L,'LLR. A.B. DA HIJ. Rc,rs Si. J. STRAUSS D. I. N.st T. E. NONe (I.T.,..A. T. Ee, P. D. T,a., s DO. L,L-s-Jo-s R. J. THOmPsON D. F. JO.I.J. L,aaeRI-vIII(v, L"'.. A J STAIR .- M. D. R.TCo1tt A. M. K-ot,(....

A. HO,LL-a. D J. CROW THI R SIR PHILIPHA,Y,K.C.u.r.,a T.1.

J-/5.aCR .IIR,. N. I,vLeee H. A. FVISFtuERG,R J. F. HA" R"P. J. CROFT A. MAYOR

AFFILIATED COMPANY: PARKE-BERNET GOLLERIES INC., NEW YORKNew York Representative: SOTHERY'S OF LOSDON LIMITED.

Preidenit: P. St. H. POLLIEN

Auctionecrs of Literary Property and Works illustrative of the Fine ArtsAT THEIR LARGE GALLERIES, 34 & 35, NEW BOND STREET, W.

Telephone: 01-493 8080DAY S OF SALL:

MONDAY. 27TH OCTOBER, 1969 LOTS 969-1337AT 10.30 A.M. PRECISELY

TUFSDAY, 28T71 OCTOBER, 1969 LOTS 1338-1636AT 11 A.M. PRECISELY

On View at least Two Days Previous (Not Saturdays)Price 2s. Od. (lOp.)

A printed list of all Prices and Buyers' Names at this sale can be supplied for six shilling,and for all sales at low subscription rates.

FIG. 3.-The Third Sale Catalog

sistency in language or period or roughlygrouped authors or subjects, others might in-clude such a range of subjects as homeopathy,anatomy, urology and physiology. (Lot 1187on Fig. 4 indicates this range. This and Fig. 3are taken from the third catalog.) In addition,a single lot might contain two titles alreadyheld in identical editions, another owned in adifferent edition, and two or three listed simplyas "and others." (These are the most tantalizingto a prospective buyer who must bid by mail.)Also, the practice of offering two copies of thesame title in a lot does no service to the privateor institutional collector, however useful to adealer buying for stock. It is, perhaps, naive tocavil at these traditional practices of auctionhouses, but they will make the catalogs of thesesales a less than adequate record of a greatlibrary.

SOTHEBY & Co.The Sotheby building is unpretentious and

rather shabby, with sudden stairways leadingto a diversity of showrooms and offices, andstrewn with works of art. The staff goes aboutits business, hurried, incurious, absently courte-ous, coping matter-of-factly with the pressuresof a constant succession of sales. Monday andTuesday are traditionally devoted to books,prints, and other small works of art. Each saleis preceded by at least two days of public in-spection, during which other activities mayspill over into the Book Room.The book sales are held in a pleasant, high-

ceilinged L-shaped room with a low stand forthe auctioneer and a horseshoe table and addi-tional chairs for participants. The books in thesale are shelved by lot, the main series at therear, additional volumes and folios at the sideand front and a considerable number of bundleson the floor. Valuable small items and unbound

Fifth Day st Afn,dtaY, 27th October, 1969

1183 Priestley (Josepli) Hartle)ys thecory of the huinatl nitsid, oli tle principleof the association of ideas, seccostid eclitiott, stargisis clust-soiltel altd thumb-mtarket(lthroughout, F3 tort across. liater halJ of last leaf tortz altar wtith thle tvstrtl Tite ettl ,

half calf tery itorst, brokest, 1790-Macbride (Da id) Experinoental essays otlistedical and philosophical subjects, sestdoii editiott, plaits, ca/l/I wortt, 1767--Wintringham (Cliftotl) An experinsental inqtuiry ttn some parts of the anitnalstructtire, I plate. half-title, cail/ brkokes. 1740 8to (3)

1184 Priestley (Joseph) A fantiliar intioduction to the study of electricityFIRST EDITION, 4 plates onlI (a/ 7. lack. /lates 1, 4, 5), 1768-Trye (Ch. Br.)Illustrations of some of the itsjuries to which the lower limbs are exposed, plates.1802-Home (Sir Everard) A dissertation of pus, 1788-Wardrop (Andrew) Altaddress to the members of tle Royal College of surgeons on the surgicaldepartment of the Royal Infirmary, Fdistburgh, 1800--Macartney (James)Observations on curvatures of the spine, Dublitt, 1817-Liston (Robert) NMemoirson the crural arch, plates, Edinburgh, 1819-Pulley (John) An essay on theproximate cause of animal impregtsation, 1801 -Hensry (William) Experiments otscarbonated hydrogenous gas, presetitation copy front the atithor, [17971-Dessar(Henry) Inoculation, Insattity, Infirmary, three articles extracted from theEdinburgh Encyclopaedia. presettatiot inscriptiot frosn the author, [Ed/isiburgh.1818]: and another; all disbotund; sit/ol as a coollecti oli f tracts 11nt stbiect to returit

4to (10)

1185 Primerose (James) De tisttlierttlis nios-bis et symptomatibus libtiqilinque, owtster.ship esntrr: IIilliam Patetn. Etlinibturgh. 1752, oltI telluln

4tt Rotterdat, 1655

1186 Pring (Daniel) A siew of the relations of the nervous systenm, 1815-Wardrop (James) An account of some diseases of the toes and fingers, I plate,1814; bouttl *tith tltIo others, half calf. brokest-Golis (L. A.) A treatise ott thehydrocephalus acutus or inflammatory wvater in the head, translated from theGerman, half calf 1821-Vaughan (Walter) An essav on headaches. halfcalf, 1825

8'o (3)

1187 Prochaska (Geore) De carne nmusculari tractatus anatomico-phvsiologicus, 6plates, plte 6 tori. half-title. tiestta. 1778: De strtictura nervorum,7 folding plates, tumteral ot plate 6 satl. Iiesssa. 1779; 2 svorks in one vol..half calf, ttortt, upper toiter loose 8ttt

FIG. 4.-A Page from the Third Catalog

Bull. Med. Libr. Ass. 58 (4) October 1970 533

HELEN CRAWFORD

pamphlets are likely to be collected in a sepa-rate cupboard.A considerable number of dealers and a

sprinkling of collectors and librarians were ex-amining volumes when I arrived. The wholeeffect was rather casual, but I don't doubt thatan inconspicuous surveillance was kept onvisitors. I occasionally consulted the head porter-a very important figure in the hierarchy,whose good offices are sought (and suitably re-warded) by experienced bidders. When I in-quired about a missing book, he gave me theaccolade of "you're on the ball! That was with-drawn this morning."

I found myself a stool and a corner of afelt-covered table and went to work. Both Iand the felt became progressively more snuffyas I worked my way through as many as possi-ble of the 500-some lots, mostly in molderingcalf bindings. Sotheby's clings to the singlebelt of tape around a lot. The use of slip knotsand the scrupulous care not to waste tape makeit hard to maintain one's respect for fragilevolumes while struggling with dusty fingers totie them up again. By the end of the viewingperiod the floor was littered with bits of bind-ings and many more covers had given up theirtenuous hold on the spines.

After the inspection I recalculated our ten-tative bids and indicated final ranges andpriorities to Mr. Taylor, who was to be ourmajor bidder. Predicted ranges of selected itemswere also secured from Sotheby's. The speedwith which the market for scientific books isrising was indicated by the discrepancy be-tween most of these expected prices and theeventual bids. I found my estimates, based oncurrent dealers' offerings, to be generally moreaccurate because higher than the suggestedrange, which was probably perfectly sound ayear or two earlier.

THE FIRST SALEThe auctions were scheduled for "eleven

o'clock precisely" each day, and ended as pre-cisely at 1:00. We were in place well beforethe opening. Bidders were seated around thehorseshoe table and in chairs around the walls(rather more decorous than participants in theauction Rowlandson pictured in Fig. 5). I hada first-row seat with Anthony Rota of the Rotafirm. Ronald Taylor was strategically located

behind the dealers expected to offer the majorcompetition. Except as an observer, an amateuris at a disadvantage at an auction; an experi-enced agent is necessary to keep up with thespeed of the auction and protect against auctionfever. Although the Rota firm deals in first edi-tions rather than scientific books, Mr. Taylor'sgrasp of our priorities and ability to calculatethe breaking point was responsible for much ofour success.At the stroke of 11:00 the auctioneer, Lord

John Kerr, entered, accompanied by his clerks.(See Fig. 6.) As the auctioneer, soft-voiced anddignified, announced a lot, a wooden-facedporter at the head of the horseshoe table dis-played the book or handed it to anyone at thetable desiring a closer look. The auctioneer,who must not only watch all bids from thefloor but insert offers received by mail, an-nounced the opening bid and each step there-after. Each bidder indicated his acceptance ofthe bid in his own way, usually by a head orhand gesture. Voice bids were rare, and if any-one used anything so subtle as an eyebrowsignal, I did not see it. However, some headsignals were so slight that only the auctioneercould have picked them up.The steps were usually in two to five pound

increments. In only one case did a bidder makea large leap as if to indicate an assured sale andcontempt for the more plodding process. Onlya very few lots were passed entirely.Whatever the atmosphere when a Rembrandt

or a Picasso is on the block, a book auction israther restrained. The same sense of highdrama that one imagines surrounding disposalof a work of art fetching £100,000 cannot beexpected when the top is £2,000. There aremoments of tension when a duel is taking place;however, the bidders at these sales are mostlyprofessionals with a definite job to do, eitherbuying for stock or executing commissions.They have been there before and they will bethere again. This is not to say that strain islacking. Lots are sold at the rate of more thanfour a minute, and such is the concentrationrequired that both bidders and auctioneers aregrateful that each session is limited to twohours. Each bidder is operating under the pres-sure of time and of responsibility to his princi-pal: judging how far to stretch the limits laiddown by his commission, gauging the deter-

Bull. Med. Libr. Ass. 58 (4) October 1970534

MEDICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY SALE AT SOTHEBY'S

FIG. 5.-From Sotheby's 217th Season, October 1960-July 1961. p. 4

FIG. 6.-Lord John Kerr officiating at a book auction

Bull. Med. Libr. Ass. 58 (4) October 1970 535

ic'

.0

HELEN CRAWFORD

mination of his opponents, calculating previoussavings against the distance yet to go. Keepinga tally of expenditures is a job in itself, andthere is little time for consultation.As each lot was sold, the auctioneer an-

nounced the final price and the successful bid-der. One could feel the speculation as "Sold toRota" occurred with increasing frequency.When the successful bidder was unfamiliar tothe auctioneer, a clerk quietly went to him torecord name and address.As was expected, our chief competition came

from the major British dealer in medico-histori-cal books, Dawsons of Pall Mall, representedby two tall men, Herbert Marley and W. F.Hammond. When books out of scope for us oralready in our collection were on the block, wecould relax while other bidders had their in-nings; among them the London dealers, FrancisEdwards, Hugh Elliott (whose regretted deathoccurred shortly after the second sale in July),G. Walford, and Gurney; Israel of Amsterdam;and some individual buyers. Other dealers fromthe continent were present but none, I believe,from America. Also represented were Maggs,Quaritch and Blackwell, who bid sparingly onsignificant titles. A dark intense young man waspointed out as Dr. Richard A. Hunter who,with his mother, Dr. Ida Macalpine, has writtenwidely on the history of psychiatry. A major-general acquired a book on gunshot wounds. Achemist named Sondheimer acquired many ofthe Boyle items against stiff competition. Ahalf-dozen physicians were among the success-ful bidders.

Several institutions in the United States en-tered bids at this sale, but mostly throughagents. There was a little stir when the Univer-sity of Texas was announced as successful bid-der on several titles, and Duke University andthe University of Alberta, one or two each.

"SOLD TO ROTA"And now for the question, "How did we do?"

In general, very well. By giving up a dozen orso of the top medical titles we acquired almostexactly one-third of the total lots, including,however, 55 percent of the medical volumes.Counting the titles already in our collection,70 percent of the medical titles in this portionof the Edinburgh library will be available atWisconsin. Disposition of the unique run of

Edinburgh dissertations is still a question mark,this lot having been removed from the sale whenSotheby's discovered a couple of "teachestsfull" of additional volumes in the basement.

Unhappily the top dozen included Bright'sReports of Medical Cases (1827-31) and Baer'sDe Ovi (1827) at $3,840 each and Carpue'sAn Account of Two Successful Operations forRestoring a Lost Nose (1816) at $3,360. Auen-brugger's Inventum Novum ex PercussioneThoracis (not a prepossessing volume physi-cally) fetched $1,800. A price of $2,880 paidfor a presentation copy of Bernard's article, Del'origine du sucre, indicates the length to whichcollectors will go for completeness. We werealso out of the running for a number of worksby Thomas Beddoes, one of which went for$1,560. The sixteen Boyle items, none of firstimportance, averaged about $250 each. Am-pere's Theorie des phe'nomenes e'lectrodynam-iques (1826) fetched $1,080 and a CaesalpinusDe Plantis of 1583, $2,880. Chalmers' Accountof the Weather and Diseases of South Carolina(1776) sold for $576.Some of the more valuable volumes we ac-

quired were Fabricius' Opera Anatomica deFormato Foetu ... (1625), Fallopius' Opera(1584), and John Hunter's Natural History ofthe Human Teeth (1771) with the supplement.It was gratifying to sit out the competition fortitles already owned, such as the first edition ofBeaumont's Experiments ($576) and CharlesBell's Anatomy of the Brain ($408).Our effort was, first, to acquire titles not

available in the library in any form or edition;second, to strengthen subject fields in which weare already strong, such as anatomy, physiol-ogy, and neurology; and third, to fill in titleslacking in the works of authors already wellrepresented in the library, such as Charles Bell,Boerhaave, and John Hunter. The thousandvolumes acquired add many works by distin-guished Scottish and English physicians of theeighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Baillie,Cullen, Bateman, Brodie, Fothergill, AllanBurns, Armstrong, Abercrombie, and manyothers. More distinctive is the one medicalwork of the poet, Mark Akenside, (De Dysen-teria Commentarius, 1764) with inscriptionfrom Dr. William Hunter to Dr. Cullen in avolume including also Felice Fontana's DeiMoti dell'Iride (1765).

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MEDICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY SALE AT SOTHEBY'S

One lot of library catalogs, membership lists,and similar official publications of the RoyalMedical Society and other societies and insti-tutions will be invaluable for documentingtheir history.The strong collections of late eighteenth and

early nineteenth century French authors, initi-ated by Dr. Erwin Ackerknecht, were consider-ably augmented and at unexpectedly reasonableprices. A surprising acquisition, unlisted in alot of sixty-seven French works, was a secondedition of Brunet's Manuel du Libraire et de{Amateur de Livres. Seventeenth century im-prints include Du Laurens, Fernel, and Bartho-lin. The great bargain of this sale was the ex-tremely rare journal edited by Fourcroy: Lamedicine eclairee par les sciences physiques (4v., 1791-1802) in the French lot, which aver-aged $5 a volume.To a considerable extent the condition of the

volumes worked to our benefit. Although mostof the texts were in good condition (except forsuch occasional legacies from bygone studentsas thumbprints and inkspots) the bindings werenot. Instead of the signs of mildew I expectedfrom the Edinburgh climate, dryness was morein evidence, and too many of the covers weredetached to make these attractive buys for col-lectors and dealers. A selection of volumes wasleft to be repaired or rebound in London, wherehand repair is still available. A colleague atWisconsin who was formerly an officer of theSociety claims to be able to tell whether a bookwas shelved at the back of the building nearthe candy factory or in the room with a fireplacewhich belched soot (visible in Fig. 1). Thelatter group are still distinguishable after manyhandlings but the subtler distinction escapes me.

BERTRAM ROTA, LTD.

Immediately after the sale, we were giventhe courtesy of the use of the "Sotheby cart"for delivery of the books to Rota. While Isorted and examined our purchases, I had therare experience of seeing something of theworkings of a first-edition firm. Bertram Rota,Ltd. occupies the first floor of a modern yellow-brick building on Savile Row, sharing some ofthe glamor of this prestigious location with theBeatles next door. The pleasant, high-ceilingedshowroom held an appealing variety of con-temporary works and some attractive exhibits.

The spider-web of rooms behind gave easy ac-cess from showroom to offices, mail room andprivate cubicles for staff members engaged invarious tasks. To a bookman there was some-thing very familiar in the flow of comment andmovement: triumph over a catalog finally de-livered from the printers, exasperation over a"layaway" temporarily mislaid, departures toinspect a library or attend an auction. Theyouth and enthusiasm of the staff were im-pressive, from the partners down to the young-est junior in narrow Edwardian tailoring or theblonde mail clerk disappearing around thecorner with a flirt of a plaid mini.

It was obvious that a firm dealing with manu-scripts and first editions calls on many profes-sional skills to keep up with literary trends anddiscoveries, to select stock, to appraise offeringsand to present its wares attractively in saleroomand printed catalog. Probably no other profes-sion requires such a unique combination ofliterary taste, astuteness, and probity.

I noted particularly the respect given to thecataloger, who has some of the duties of a li-brary cataloger but a more creative responsi-bility: the manuscript cataloger who must ex-tract the sense of a letter and describe it in aphrase or quotation that will attract a buyer;the book cataloger who must not only describea volume honestly but often provide annotationsin which "a great deal of learning is unob-trusively inlaid."Time for personal indulgences was limited,

but I had the pleasure of lunching with twomedical librarians well known in America: Mr.Philip Wade at the Royal College of Surgeonsand Miss Hilda Clark of the British CouncilMedical Library. An illness prevented an an-ticipated reunion with Mrs. Lilian Sargeant ofKing's College Medical Library.To the exhilaration of simply being in Lon-

don were added memories of much good booktalk, alternating serious discussion of unrecog-nized literary talent with gleeful anecdotes ofeccentricity; intense concentration and light-hearted relaxation; wet feet and warm hospi-tality. I brought back more from London thanbooks.

THE JULY SALE

The second two-day sale on July 14-15 foundme in the same chair that I had occupied in

Bull. Med. Libr. Ass. 58 (4) October 1970 537

HELEN CRAWFORD

February, with the same team of Rota andTaylor in attendance. Also present was Dr.Malcolm Macnicol, honorary librarian of theRoyal Medical Society when the idea of sellingthe collection was first entertained. By an oddcoincidence, he was spending a semester on theUniversity of Illinois medical campus at thetime of the first sale and was unable to attendit. His hopes for a good return from the saleof the library were tinged with regret that itwas not sold intact. His gift from the Society,the Gray History of the Royal Medical Society1737-1937 (1) has been at my elbow ever sinceand I am indebted to him for the illustrationsof the Library's quarters. (Figs. 1-2.)The second sale ostensibly covered the G-M

section of the alphabet, although many authorsfrom A to Z were included in the lots. TheDissertations, withdrawn from the first sale,were reoffered, with additions, as Medical Dis-sertations.

There were definite differences between thetwo sales. In spite of weather in the humid80's, the bidding seemed to me to be brisker,with more dealers actively engaged than at thefirst sale and, possibly, more mail bids enteredby the auctioneer. Some bidders active at thefirst sale were absent. E. P. Goldschmidt wasrepresented at this one sale only, and oneAmerican dealer, Rittenhouse of Philadelphia,bought many of the American items. It seemedto me that private collectors were less in evi-dence, although the number listed in the pricelist is about the same.With the exception of the great lot of Edin-

burgh dissertations, both highs and lows werelower than at the February sale. The biddingoccasionally hit a kind of air pocket when lotswent at bargain prices. Certainly no one wouldexpect many items of this vintage to sell in the$5 to $10 range, even with minor imperfec-tions. Horstius' Operum Medicorum, three foliovolumes, sold for $5, the nine volumes of Fried-rich Hoffmann's Opera Omnia (1740-60) for$10 and we acquired John Hunter's AnimalOeconomy (1792) and a Giunta edition ofMercurialis' Opuscula Aurea (1644) for $10each.The second item in the sale was a set of

Galen's Opera, the second Greek edition of1538 in five volumes, with minor imperfectionsnot affecting the text. I was as surprised as any-

one in the room when we acquired it for $29.My only explanation is that dealers who hadnot intended to bid on it were caught off balancewhen the bidding stopped so suddenly. (Wemade up for it later when other bidders wereall too alert). The effort of checking auctioncatalogs sometimes seems excessive when re-turns are minimal, but such bargains are en-couraging.The total fetched at this sale was nearly one-

third less than that of the first sale. The num-ber of lots was also smaller as was the numberof items considered deserving of individuallisting. It may be that A-F authors are in-trinsically more interesting than those in G-M:what price Galen and Malpighi as comparedwith Bright and Fabricius? Even from theperspective of my vast experience at two auc-tion sales 1 can see that there is no predictingresults.The Medical Dissertations did not come up

until late in the second day. Our effort to con-serve funds for this great collection exerted arestraining influence on preceding bids. Evenso, we acquired a higher percentage of the totalthan in February.

HIGHS

The high price of the sale was $2,280 forthe first English edition of Guillemeau's TheFrenche Chirurgery or All the Manualle Op-erations of Chirurgery published in 1597, ofwhich only eight other copies are recorded,half in American and half in British libraries.Second was the splendid Micrographia (1665)of Robert Hooke at $1,800. It is deplorable thatthe integrity of the fine seventeenth centuryvellum binding, with Friedrich Hoffmann's in-scription, was ruined by removal of anothervolume from the covers. Fortunately this edi-tion is available both in the Memorial Libraryand, thanks to the generosity of Dr. MauriceRichardson, in the Middleton Library.

Other highs included $1,200 for the JohnMayow Tractatus Quinque (1674), which sellsfor much more if in better condition (The Mid-dleton Library has 1708 editions of two ofthese tracts, on respiration and on rickets.) Notsurprisingly, the Jenner items were in the higherrange. Two copies of the first edition of theInquiry (1798) fetched $1,152 and $1,080.Since we have a copy of the admirable facsimile

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of this edition (printed in only 500 copies), wesettled for a copy of his Further Observations(1799) and Continuation ... (1800) at a moremodest expenditure.The Malpighi De Bombyce (1669) brought

$912. (A donor has promised us a copy of thiswork). We were fortunate to acquire Malpighi'sOpera Omnia (1686) and Opera Posthuma(1697) in one folio volume for $29, lacking onlya few small plates in the original work whichare available in an edition already held.

Although we relinquished Glisson's Ana-tomia Hepatis (1654), which sold for $840, wedid acquire a scarce 1655 edition of De Rachi-tide, and his Tractatus de Ventriculo et Intesti-nis. We also acquired the De Mulierum Organis(1672) and De Virorum Organis (1668) of deGraaf in a single volume.

Since we have the first two volumes of Hew-son's Experimental Inquiries, we did not feeljustified in spending $720 for the sake of thevery scarce third volume on the red particles ofthe blood. The same amount was paid for aninferior copy of the Laennec first edition. (Weowe our impeccable copy of these volumes toDr. William S. Middleton and his former resi-dent, Dr. Meyer Friedman.) As was anticipated,the first English edition, translated by JohnForbes, fetched as much as the original. Wedid acquire a second edition of this work whichis still the standard English edition.We added also a number of other works of

significance in the Edinburgh context: six titlesby John Hunter's brother-in-law, Sir EverardHome (pronounced, I am given to understand,Hume); and eleven works of the three Alex-ander Monro's, whom I shall not endeavor todisentangle here.The elephant folio of William Hunter, Ana-

tomia Uteri Humani Gravidi (1774) at $576,brought only half its peak price because of itsshabby condition. We have an excellent copy ofthis splendid work from the Baskerville press.We acquired a number of significant titles in

neurology and psychiatry, notably nine worksby the neurologist, Marshall Hall. The Scrip-tores Neurologici Minores (1791-95) of C. F.Ludwig is a valuable selection of papers, manynot available in the original. Competition formore modern neurological works is indicatedby the $216 paid for the Hirschfeld Neurologie(1853) and the $528 brought by a first edition

of Ferrier's Functions of the Brain at the previ-ous sale.One of our major purchases was a set of ten

thick folio volumes (approximately 120 lbs.) ofthe Opera of Hippocrates and Galen, parallelGreek and Latin texts edited by RenatusCharterius and published in Paris in 1678-79.With the 1538 Galen mentioned before, wenow have for the first time Greek originals ofthese basic works.

THE DISSERTATIONS

Uncertainty concerning the Medical Disser-tations cast a long shadow over the whole sale.This collection of some 3,200 dissertations pub-lished during the years 1749-1839 is certainlyone of the most complete outside of Edinburgh.As the sale catalog notes, "it is almost half aslarge again as the set of the Medico-ChirurgicalSociety of Aberdeen sold by us in 1967 [for,as I recall, $6,000] and then believed to be thelargest set offered for sale in modern times."Although the Gray history gives 1751 as thedate of the first published thesis, this set in-cludes two printed in 1749 and a volume for1750.

This collection would form a kind of cap-stone to the volumes Wisconsin had alreadyacquired. Singly many of them would sell forfrom $10 to $40, and the value of at least one-that of Joseph Black-would be almost im-possible to calculate. The dissertations containthe first published work of many members wholater reached distinction. Sir James Mackintoshwrote of the meetings at which the dissertationsand cases were presented to the Society: "Suchdebates were the only public examinations inwhich favour could have no place, and whichnever could degenerate into mere formality:they must always be severe, and always just"(2).

I had mentally resigned myself to an averageprice of $4 or $5 which would effectually re-move us from the bidding. By tallying our sav-ings as we went along I knew that we couldmeet the ceiling previously agreed on. I amsure I held my breath as the offers mounted-and whether in steps of tens, fifties, or hun-dreds of pounds I maintain no memory. Onecould feel the sigh that greeted the "Sold toRota" at the final bid. The total was less thanwe expected to pay and very much under the

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value of the individual dissertations. It wasappropriate that George Lawson, the represen-tative of the Rota firm who had conducted thenegotiations with the Society and with Wiscon-sin over a period of several years, was biddingat this point. It was also uncanny that AnthonyRota, exhibiting the kind of prescience thatcomes from years of unconscious timing of theauction process, appeared at my elbow at al-most the minute this lot was decided.The significance of these dissertations rests

on the position of Edinburgh as a center formedical study. Founded in 1726 by the seniorAlexander Monro, the Medical School of theUniversity of Edinburgh had, by the end of the18th century, succeeded Leyden as the leadingmedical school of the world. Because Edin-burgh anticipated by nearly sixty years thefirst systematic instruction in medicine in Eng-lish universities, the English graduates duringthe eighteenth century outnumbered the Scots,as did the Irish. Almost as many students camefrom the West Indies and North America asfrom Scotland. The geographic designations forthe candidates-"Carolinensis", "Barbadensis","Americanus", "Virginiensis", "Antiguensis","Marylandensis", "Novo-Eboracensis", and ofcourse, "Pensylvaniensis"-and the recurringtopics of scurvy, of dysentery, of putrid fever,of phthisis, of the bilious malignant fever ofAmerica, of Peruvian bark, conjure up thesailing ship and the hazards of an eighteenthcentury environment.The first American member of the Society

was John Moultrie of South Carolina, who wasalso the first American to graduate in medicineabroad (1749). The next was Peter Middleton(1749), author of the earliest American historyof medicine. Moultrie's dissertation is not in-cluded in this collection and Middleton's wasapparently not published. Other prominentAmericans are represented: William Shippen(1761) and John Morgan (1763), who were tofound the first American medical school inPhiladelphia; Samuel Bard (1765), later ofKing's College; Benjamin Rush (1768) andCaspar Wistar (1786).The Statuta Solennia de Doctoratus in Medi-

cina Gradu in Academia Edinburgena (1817)acquired in another lot gives an invaluable listof the dissertations accepted from 1705 through1817.

Although the remainder of the sale was some-what of a letdown, the exhilaration of successwith solvency encouraged me to bid rathersteeply on a title whose rarity justifies such in-dulgence: Johannes Muller's De GlandularumSecernentium Structura Penitiori (1830), likemost of Muller's monographs both highly sig-nificant and very scarce.

SHIPMENT

The books were shipped in stout woodenboxes, via airmail. An export license was se-cured for the dissertations, in case they mightbe interpreted to fall under regulations con-cerning export of "documents" of national in-terest. Any considerable sale of manuscripts ordocuments to an American library is likely tolead to fulminations in the British press overloss of national treasures. Concerning this re-curring controversy, an editorial in the BookCollector comments:

Despite the far from satisfactory machinerygoverning export of manuscripts now, we havebeen lucky in our American friends. First, gener-ally speaking, it is quicker to get a microfilm fromAmerica than it was to travel half way acrossEngland to transcribe in a bad light in a freezinghouse. Second, American buyers have often, whenthwarted by the licensing procedure, behaved withgreat consideration, and without the slightest traceof malice.... If objects of historic interest areallowed to reach their full price in the open market,and the nation is able to compete in the market,then both vendor and buyer will have a fair deal,and both are given the added incentive of highprice to look after and preserve such objects. (3)

The Middleton Library has added more thana hundred Garrison-Morton titles in recent pur-chases, most of them from the Edinburgh salesand many of them not previously available inthe midwest area. The Garrison-Morton listnaturally concentrates on "firsts" and a collec-tion based solely on these titles would be soundbut thin; other works of authors listed, worksalmost equally important but not "firsts" andthe minor works that more adequately mirrormedical practice of different periods are neces-sary to flesh out the figure of medicine in his-tory. The books acquired from the EdinburghLibrary are a composite of these categories, par-ticularly valuable for the works from the Edin-burgh school but also strong in the texts inmany languages that the members consulted

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over two centuries. The acquisitions are bal-anced between significant and expensive singleitems and a large volume of works which, al-though not epoch-making, are important to ascholar concerned with a single author, a par-ticular period or a special subject.

MOON OVER EDINBURGH

Rather unexpectedly, I visited Edinburgh onthis trip, as a guest of the Lawson family, andhad the unique experience of witnessing themoon landings on their excellent TV. I alsospent an afternoon at the new library of theUniversity of Edinburgh, a modern buildingwith a wall of windows giving a breathtakingview of the old city. The keeper of rare books,Mr. Charles Finlayson, showed me the collec-tion under his care. The extent of the collection,and the holdings in science are impressive. Thefour mammoth volumes of the Audubon birds,the despair of everyone who tries to displaythem in normal exhibit cases, were on perma-nent display in well designed cases. The origi-nal owner of these volumes was one of Audu-bon's patrons.

I was also privileged to hold the Servetus'Restitutio Christianismi (1553) in which thiscontemporary of Vesalius recorded his dis-covery that the blood in the pulmonary circula-tion passes into the heart, after having beenmixed with air in the lungs. Only three copiesof this work survived when Calvin had both theauthor and his book burned at the stake for, asGarrison puts it, "a mere juggling of verbiage,a theologic quibble" (4). Some pages from thiswork were known to have been used in evidenceagainst Servetus, and some pages lacking fromthe Edinburgh copy have been supplied inphotocopy. The complete copies are in Parisand Vienna.

I also visited the attractive Miss MargaretBell at the Medical School library; like many ofher transatlantic colleagues, she is cheerfullycoping with overcrowding and heavy use in ex-pectation of a new building.

LAST LAP

The final sale (except for a number of jour-nals and a few residual book lots offered inFebruary 1970) was held on October 28-29.It included not only the R-Z portion of themajor alphabet but a large appendix of A-Ls;

a number of odds and ends; "crippled" booksand odd volumes of sets; hundreds of pamphletsand brief works, either bound together or dis-bound from previous volumes; a large numberof lots only partially listed; a considerable col-lection of periodicals; and a roundup of ap-proximately 2,000 volumes of nineteenth andtwentieth century works not considered entitledto individual listing. The total of nearly 5,000books (incorporating a much larger number ofindividual titles), and about 2,700 periodicalvolumes taxed the facilities of Sotheby's as ourpurchases from this and previous sales will taxthe facilities of the Middleton Library for along time. It was in some ways the most prom-ising of the three sales and the hardest to eval-uate in advance.

I left for London a day early in the hopethat the Book Room would be open for inspec-tion on the Wednesday rather than the Thurs-day preceding the sale. Most of Tuesday wasspent in circling England, landing in Paris torefuel, and then circling again, waiting firstfor the fog to burn away and then for permis-sion to land as one of a long line stacked upover Heathrow.

I spent the next three days stretching forbooks on the shelves, stooping over bundles onthe floor or up the book ladder examining vol-umes at ceiling level. There was some competi-tion for the ladder, which blocked a whole sec-tion if one stood, as the head porter politelyand quite rightly suggested to me, facing thewall. However, inspection of several big oddlots of British and continental books on thesetop shelves revealed some very desirable itemswhich we acquired for almost nothing.Even though the Book Room was open

Wednesday, the porters were still sorting theperiodical lots when I left after normal closingtime on Friday afternoon, and the big lot of2,000 volumes was not available for examina-tion until the morning of the first sale. TheMonday sale was also to start at 10:30 ratherthan the usual 11:00 hour to handle the extravolume.

There is some advantage in being an eccen-tric American female who does not worry aboutlosing face by engaging in manual labor. EarlyMonday morning found me up-ended over teachests, trying to take the measure of the 2,000-volume lot that had overrun the shelves. These

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chests, of thin boards lined with foil, stand hip-high and still contain old flakes of tea in addi-tion to 75-100 volumes each. I was joined inthis hopeful rummaging by Dr. C. W. M. Pratt,Lecturer in Anatomy at Cambridge, who oncelectured in Madison while on a year's appoint-ment at the University of Illinois MedicalSchool. He and his charming wife have thefondest memories of Madison.At 10:30, dusty but better informed, I was

joined by Ronald Taylor and George Lawson.C. F. John Grindle, a member of the RoyalMedical Society and Richard de Soldenhof, cur-rently the honorary librarian, were also in at-tendance and bid on some titles. In addition tothe dealers who had participated in the previ-ous sales, the periodical offerings had attracteda representative of Swets & Zeitlinger of Am-sterdam. I was honored to meet the respectedMenno Hertzberger, also of Amsterdam.

THE LARGE LOTSAs the bidding proceeded from Lot 969

(McAvoy) to lot 979 (MEDICAL BOOKS: avery extensive collection of upwards of 2,000volumes of medical books ... published duringthe period from 1840 to about 1900), Mr. Tay-lor admitted to exerting his best telepathicpressure against purchase because he knew hewould have to direct the logistics of trans-ferring, storing, and shipping this formidableload of material. However, oblivious of thought-waves, I nudged Mr. Lawson to a modest$1,000 bid, which took the lot.

I estimated that a hundred selected titlesfrom this lot would repay the cost; later sort-ing indicated the estimate to be on the lowside. The printed description omitted the 20thcentury works, which were well selected and invery good condition. Included in the lot werethe original or only editions of Albee's BoneGraft Surgery, J. K. Mitchell's On the Crypto-gamous Origin of Malarious Fevers, A. B. Gar-rod's Treatise on Gout and Rheumatism, A. E.Garrod's Inborn Errors of Metabolism, WilliamJames's Principles of Psychology, HelmholtzOn the Sensations of Tone, Wilfred Trotter'sOn the Instincts of the Herd in Peace and Warand Collected Papers; and works of Quain,Moynihan, Liston, Playfair, Tait, Treves, andtheir contemporaries. The value per volume ismodest in comparison with that of the olderworks but far from negligible.

542

When this lot was delivered to Savile Row,the cartons labeled "Best British Eggs" werepiled head high the length of the busy corridorto the packing room. No two volumes of a setor works of an author seemed to be in the samebox, and any logical sorting or listing was outof the question.

Also offered in large lots, twenty-eight ofthem, were some 800 pamphlets, of which weacquired about 500. They offer a rich lode, par-ticularly for the student of the Edinburghschool. Buried in the unlisted titles I found theanesthesia number of Littell's Living Age(1848); another copy of the Mitchell mono-graph on malaria; Hamilton on purgative medi-cines, Scarpa on the accessory nerves, Millar onasthma, and two gruesome little monographs,Lair's Essai sur les Combustions Humaines(1823) and Malcolmson On Solitary Confine-ment (1837). I expect our catalogers to greetthese lots with some reserve, knowing the diffi-culty of treating composite volumes containingmonographs, letters, orations, prize essays; pro-posals, counter-proposals, protests; an occa-sional reprint from the Royal Society transac-tions or the proceedings of a local society; or astiffly offended tract entitled Observations onthe Remarks of Dr. concerning

followed by an even stiffer Answerof Dr. to the observations of Dr.

on

One collection of fifty tracts on medical edu-cation includes works of Robert Knox, Liston,Balfour, James Clark, Andrew Duncan, Syme,and others, written at a time when such discus-sions were shaping the pattern of medical edu-cation in the British Isles.The fine collection of Probationary Essays of

the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh isa suitable companion to the medical disserta-tions acquired in July, with the additional virtueof the English tongue. Among the many fa-miliar names are Knox, Benjamin Bell, Syme,Fergusson, Lizars, Liston, Cullen, and ArgyleRobertson.

ODD LOTS

The odd lots, more than anything acquiredat this sale, satisfied the urge for discovery and,at less than $1 a volume, the hope for bar-gains. The "crippled" or "hurt" volume maylack the titlepage, one or more plates, or por-tions of the text; it may be damaged by ink or

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water or be literally Worn away by use. Thesales catalog must itemize such defects but evenso such damaged items are sold on a "not sub-ject to return" basis.A collector naturally wants his purchase to

be in mint condition, uncut and unopened,with all errata sheets and, hopefully, the origi-nal paper covers and advertising matter intact.If it bears also the inscription of the author,preferably to an equally famous contemporary,so much the better. The older the book the lessthe likelihood that these qualities have survived.However, when usefulness rather than resalevalue is concerned, a library is in a differentposition than the individual collector or even abook dealer. Unless a scholar is studyingtextual or printing variants, a missing pageprovided in photocopy may be no real handi-cap. A partial set acquired cheaply may satisfysome needs until a complete set comes along.The plates from one edition may be usablewith the text of another. I am sure we shallhave many occasions to be grateful that webought most of this pitiful residue of a greatlibrary.

Lots of 40-50 items were also listed underMEDICAL BIOGRAPHY, MEDICAL HIS-TORY, and PSYCHIATRY AND NEUROL-OGY. These and the odd lots mentioned cameup early on the first day, requiring an advancedecision on how deeply to plunge on this mis-cellaneous material at the risk of losing impor-tant titles later.One literally mammoth lot of thick folios ac-

quired at less than $4 a volume included theancestor of all the encyclopedias, the greatDiderot in seventeen volumes (lacking theplates, however) and the five-volume BayleDictionary Historical and Critical of 1734-38.Also included in this lot were two valuableworks of Mangetus which alone of the bookspurchased showed evidence of long continuedstorage in a damp place. In both the BibliothecaChirurgica (1721) and the Bibliotheca Scrip-torum Medicorum (1731) the pages nearest thecover are as fragile as snowflakes from dry rot.

Very gratifying was acquisition of anotherbig bibliographical work, Ploucquet's InitiaBibliotheca Medico-practicae (1793-94). An ex-cellent edition of Paracelsus (1603-05) addsanother to the large number of collected worksacquired in these sales. Important anatomicalworks were also added: Sandifort, Soemmering,

Valsalva, Weitbrecht (published in St. Peters-burg), Tiedemann, Steno, and ten works byScarpa, who has been less well represented inour anatomy collection than the quality of hiswork deserves. The unusual number of impor-tant works on the heart include Peacock, Piorry,Senac, Purkinye, Portal, Prichard, and, in anodd lot, one volume of the collected papers ofJenner's friend, Caleb Hillier Parry, in addi-tion to three of his other works bid for sepa-rately.

Metchnikoff's long-sought Lectures on theComparative Pathology of Inflammation, un-listed in one of the modern lots, was acquiredalong with a listed title, his more common butalso highly valued Immunity. Also in this choicelot were not only the first but the second edi-tion of Pavlov's Work of the Digestive Glands(1902, 1910), both in much better conditionthan our brittle copy which was ruined by thewell-meant efforts of a borrower to repair it.Other welcome contemporary titles, also un-listed, were some works of Sherrington, Adrian,and Freud. These indicate the quality of the20th century portion of the library.My personal favorite from all the sales is a

volume by Stukely that we could afford onlybecause half the plates are missing. I treasurethe absurd juxtaposition of subjects: Of theSpleen, its Description and History, Uses andDiseases, particularly the Vapors with theirRemedy. . to which is added Anatomical Ob-servations on the Dissection of an Elephant(1723).

HIGH PRICES

By far the highest individual price in thethree sales was the $4,800 required to takeParkinson's Essay on the Shaking Palsy (1817).The annotation explains the stubbornness of thecompetition:

The book is one of the rarest of medical classics.There is no copy in the British Museum or themain medical libraries in London nor is there acopy in the Cushing, Osler, or Dr. Waller collec-tions.

There was much speculation concerning theidentity of the Mr. Campbell who was the suc-cessful bidder. Fortunately, for more frugalcollectors there is a satisfactory facsimile ofthis little sixty-six-page monograph.

Aside from the dissertations, the high lotprice was drawn, not surprisingly, by the 300

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volumes of Philosophical Transactions of theRoyal Society of London, dating from 1667and sold for $6,720. However, the per-volumeprice was higher for the fifty-seven volumes ofTransactions of the Royal Society of Edin-burgh, which fetched $2,160. The long run ofLancet brought $5 a volume, the British Medi-cal Journal, under $7. The forty-two volumes ofSydenham Society Publications sold for lessthan $8 each, the New Sydenham Society se-ries of 182 volumes for a very modest $2 apiece.Our only periodical purchases will give us

some completion volumes of two early Ameri-can journals, a set of the London MedicalJournal (1781-90) and a set of the rarely heldJournal de Physiologie Experimentale of Ma-gendie (1821-30) lacking only the final twoissues. From the other journals offered in thefinal sale in February 1970 we acquired a com-plete set of the Medico-Chirurgical Trans-actions which spans the nineteenth century.Tennent's An Epistle to Dr. Richard Mead Con-cerning the Epidemical Diseases of Virginia(1742), with its exposition on the Seneca rat-tlesnake root, brought $400.

Other single titles drawing high prices werethe Cerebri Anatomi (1664) of Willis at $528,twenty-five monographs and reprints of JamesYoung Simpson in one volume (from 1839 on)for $960; the Vesalius Chirurgia Magna (1569)for $1,248 and his first published work, Rhazes,for $720. Also fetching more than $500 werebotanical works by Hans Sloane and John Ray;the Wharton Adenographia (1656) and the firstedition of Virchow's Die Cellularpathologie(1858).Among our most expensive purchases was

the very rare Opuscula Anatomica Nova...Instauratio Magna of Jean Riolan (1649). Al-most simultaneously, members of the MedicalLibrary staff at the Medical Library Associa-tion meeting in Louisville were hearing Dr.Nikolaus Mani, Professor of the History ofMedicine at Wisconsin, announced as winner ofthe Hafner award for his article on Riolan.

Another choice acquisition was the Osteo-logia Nova (1691) of Clopton Havers, a pioneerwork on the fine structure of the bone.

Having the German edition of 1801, wewaived the Rollo Account of Two Cases of theDiabetes Mellitus (1797) which sold for $408,but acquired a second edition (1806) very rea-sonably.

We also acquired John Snow's On Chloro-form (1858). The catalog entry for Dr. RobertMacintosh's copy of this work, sold at Sotheby'sa few months later, points out that only 450copies were published, and only 126 copies ofSnow's volume on ether, of which we alreadyhad a copy. These are significant to Wisconsinbecause of Dr. Ralph Waters' effort in reawak-ening interest in Snow's work in anesthesia,long overshadowed by his contribution to epi-demiology. (These and other pertinent workson respiration were purchased from the 0.Sidney Orth Memorial Fund.) I was told bymembers of the Rota staff that there is a JohnSnow pub-presumably somewhere near the oldBroad Street pump!-but did not have time tofollow up this tempting research lead.Among the few volumes of American in-

terest in the last sale was Benjamin Rush'sAccount of the Bilious Remitting Fever, 1sted., 1794, which sold for $180. The Englishedition, 1800, of Noah Webster's Brief Historyof Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases brought$156. Earlier the Bayley Account of the Epi-demic Fever which Prevailed in the City ofNew York (1796) had sold for $228. These areexamples of the range and value of the epi-demiological works in the Edinburgh library.The Middleton Library already owned thesetitles.The length of the sale list and the unusually

large number of "desk" bids kept the auctioneerand his clerks at strict attention throughout thesale. Nor did the major bidder have time towaste. Disposal of 629 lots in two and one-halfhours comes out to better than five lots perminute. At that rate we acquired 2,165 volumesin the space of one crowded minute-somethingrather special even in these days of quantitypurchases. In all, we brought home close to1,600 antiquarian volumes, incorporating amuch larger number of individual titles. Anumber of volumes not worth transport-out-of-date American student texts, for instance-were eliminated from the large modern lot,the remainder of which will total about 1,500volumes.The auction world is highly competitive, and

any bidder who walks off with a major part ofa sale must expect to arouse uncharitable feel-ings. As one lot after another was knockeddown to Rota, the antagonism of other bidderswas palpable. However, with one very unchar-

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acteristic exception, the attitude of both deal-ers and individual bidders was personally cor-dial, with a rueful acceptance of the westwardflow of scholarly resources.A successful bidder is open to the suspicion

of overbidding. To check whether our bids wereexcessive and whether our participation actu-ally raised prices, I compared reports in the1967/68 Book auction record (which listsprices of individual items at both British andAmerican auction houses) for identical titlessold at the Edinburgh sales. Because the saleof the Aberdeen Medical Society Library in1967 was recorded in this volume, a relativelylarge number of identical titles was found. Onlya quarter of this sample had remained the sameor declined slightly; the average increase forthe whole list was 32 percent. However, therise for the titles we acquired was slightly lessthan average. The fact is that, as more andmore volumes are funneled into libraries, com-petition for the remaining copies-especiallythe acknowledged classics-inevitably raisesthe price level. Prices in current antiquariancatalogs are averaging better than twice whatwe paid for the identical titles, leaving a goodmargin for expenses.

THE SALES CATALOGS

My experience at these sales left me withconsiderable sympathy for H. A. Feisenbergerof Sotheby's, who was responsible for the salecatalogs. The mass of material, its age and itsphysical condition must have made prepara-tion of the catalogs an exhausting job. Thefront covers came off in one's hands, the agedcalf bindings disintegrated on to one's clothes,the uncut pages resisted opening and yet re-quired gingerly handling with dusty fingers; thevolumes had to be examined for plates, por-traits, supplements, inscriptions, idiosyncraciesof publication that might affect values, extratitles bound in, foxing and other defects. List-ing and describing the pamphlet lots musthave seemed interminable. Matching up workspublished in more than one volume was un-doubtedly difficult in inadequate space.The printed sale catalogs would have made

a better historical record of this great collec-tion if more titles had been given individuallisting. What is more lamentable was the dis-persion of some extensive subject collectionsthroughout the sales catalogs and subsequently

to the four winds. The original collections oncholera and other epidemic diseases must havebeen impressive. The works on mineral watersand medical climatology were extensive. Navaland military medicine included many choiceitems, such as Blane, Larrey, Lind, and ThomasTrotter. The brisk demand for the numerousworks on colonial and tropical medicine as-sured that, whereas Ainslie came to Wisconsin,Annesley, Hillary, and Chalmers went farafield.When purchases are added to existing hold-

ings, the Middleton Library will have at leastthree quarters of the medical books sold in thesesales, in either the identical edition offered oranother contemporaneous edition. The addi-tions build on existing strength in anatomy,pathology, physiology, internal medicine, andthe neurological sciences. Increase of the surgi-cal collection is significant. A wide range ofimportant works was acquired in specialtiespreviously not high on the priority list: pedi-atrics, obstetrics, dermatology, and ophthal-mology, for instance. The Memorial Libraryalso made some additions to its notable holdingsin chemistry and pharmacy.The one area in which the Edinburgh Library

was unaccountably weak was in the develop-ment of the science of bacteriology in the latenineteenth century. Pasteur, Koch, Behring arenot represented at all and Lister only by hisCollected Papers. The definite swing to Englishlanguage publications after about 1850 is partlyresponsible for this deficiency, but it may alsoindicate low student interest in what is essen-tially a graduate discipline.

These purchases must be considered in rela-tion to other important acquisitions of the pastyear: 1,200 substantive volumes, plus severalhundred dissertations and smaller works, boughtfrom Fritz Haller of Munich; and the substan-tial library contributed by Dr. Hans Reese, re-cently retired from the Medical School faculty.Formerly the property of an Italian collectorand an Austrian medical society, the Hallerpurchase includes several dozen sixteenth cen-tury titles, notably a number of early editionsof Hippocrates and Galen, and a wide repre-sentation of Italian, French and German au-thors, with no definite subject emphasis. Theearliest volume is a Valescus de Tharanta of1502. Dr. Reese's library is typical of his wide-ranging interests but with particular emphasis

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on neurology and medical history. The scarcestvolumes are probably the impressive folio ofParisano (1623-28) and the Medicae ArtesPrinceps (1567) of the Stephanus press, but thelibrary staff particularly welcomed that statussymbol, a set of the Oxford dictionary in theoriginal edition.

Acquisition of whole libraries enriches ahistorical collection in ways not at first appar-ent. A library collected over two centuriessubtly reveals, by emphasis on specific authorsand subjects, the tone of a period. We acquiredenough of the Edinburgh library to preservesome of these interrelationships and the inter-play of languages. For instance, I have men-tioned Johannes Muller's De Glandularum Se-cernentium (1830). In the next sale we boughtSamuel Solly's commentary on this work. Wealso got a French edition of Mueller's Hand-buch der Physiologie and an English translationby Charles West, with the highly valued plates,of his scarce work on cancer which we alreadyowned: Ueber den feinern Bau und die Formender krankhaften Geschwiilste (1838). The valueof a collection to a scholar is increased by ac-quisition of variant editions and translations;collected works of important figures; minorworks of major authors and major works ofminor authors; and supporting historical andbiographical works. The inevitable duplicatesare a disposable extra.To make these additions available to the

scholarly world, a continuation of "Neu" shouldcertainly be anticipated. This checklist, Chemi-cal, Medical and Pharmaceutical Books Printedbefore 1800 in the Collections of the Universityof Wisconsin Libraries, was edited by JohnNeu, History of Science Bibliographer at theMemorial Library, and published by the Uni-versity of Wisconsin Press in 1965. Meanwhile,individual volumes as processed are reported tothe Union Catalogue of the Library of Congressand, as of late 1969, to the new union catalogueof holdings of libraries affiliated with the Mid-west Regional Medical Library at the JohnCrerar. The Wisconsin holdings will also be up-dated in the projected checklist of Garrison-Morton book titles held by the midwest librariesaffiliated with the Center for Research Libraries.

HOW TO APPROACH AN AUCTIONShould you go to an auction? The answer de-

pends on whether you are merely curious or

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have a serious professional intent. Withoutsome genuine interest in the outcome, a bookauction would probably be rather tame. Thereis in any auction, however, the hint of treasuretrove, the challenge of competition, the suspenseof uncertainty. One must be prepared for agreat deal of drudgery in advance and for thevery demanding effort of pricing and decision-making. Knowing that one's decisions are goingforever into the published records of auctionsales can be a little intimidating.A second question is whether to bid for one-

self or to commission an agent. Again, the vol-ume of business controls. If one can bid on abook, make payment and carry it away, thereis no need for an agent. However, institutionalbuyers would find this difficult. If one purchasesmore than an armful of books, the logistics ofgetting them packed and shipped enters in. Withone auction treading on the heels of the one be-fore, an auction house must clear its shelvespromptly. (Our purchases were in transit to theRota packing room the afternoon of the salesand were wrapped for shipment as fast as Icould clear them.)A colleague asked me, "How do you decide

what to bid at an auction?" The only soundbasis for price estimates is some knowledge ofthe importance of an author in the history ofscience, a determination of his significance toone's own collection, and familiarity with cur-rent prices through constant checking of theBookman's Price Index, auction sale records,and current antiquarian catalogs. Auction sales,particularly, allow very little lead-off time forpainstaking checking of price sources.

It is in fixing on a top bid for the rarest itemsthat personal attendance is most helpful. Theseare hardest to estimate in advance because theydo not turn up often enough to establish a pricerange or are sold privately and not entered intrade records. Buyers in attendance can judgefrom the intensity of bidding whether the priceis being driven up by one or two tenacious bid-ders or whether interest is more widespread.The association item is particularly subject topressure from collectors intent on acquiringwhat may be a unique copy. Inevitably someitems high on one's priority list sell at what onerecognizes as a high price; however, one hasthe reassurance at an auction that whatever thesuccessful bidder pays, someone else was willingto pay almost as much. The auction price will

Bull. Med. Libr. Ass. 58 (4) October 1970

MEDICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY SALE AT SOTHEBY'S

inevitably establish a new baseline for futuresales, particularly of items bought by a dealerfor stock.Know what you want and how badly you

want it. Decide whether you are more interestedin getting a number of books as cheaply as pos-sible or a few at any price. Establish rigid orflexible ceilings according to these priorities,leaving your bidder some room to maneuver.With funds for substantial purchases a flexiblebidding plan can make the difference betweenmoderate and oustanding success. Recognizethat there's no backing up: what is saved onZollickoffer can't be applied on an Abercrom-bie someone else has already gathered in. Ac-cept the fact that, although you may occasion-ally be forced into a higher price than youintended, it is likely to seem reasonable the nexttime a copy comes on the market; and mean-while you have had the use of the book. Thisall-out incursion into the auction market wasmade possible by a large bequest from G. PaulMiller, a Madison business man, and smallercontributions from medical alumni and manyother friends. The official Friends of the WilliamS. Middleton Medical Library, which came intoexistence with an initial contribution from Dr.Chauncey Leake, continues (with constant sup-port from Dr. Middleton himself) to underwritepurchases for the historical collection.

Flying off to London three times in one year

to buy books at auction has an insouciant jet-setsound that has made me the envy of my asso-ciates. This picture is slightly out of focus. Iwould not have missed the experience, but ithas been the most grueling of my life, secondonly to moving a library. The interminablechecking of holdings is tedious and wearying;the decision on prices and the weighing of onetitle against another is very demanding, as Dr.Mani can corroborate; and the sheer physicaleffort of examining, manipulating and recheck-ing tons of books leaves little energy to enjoythe glamor of a foreign city. These responsibili-ties can be eased by colleagues but not reallyshared; and only a person with a strong acquisi-tive instinct and the conviction of taking partin an historic event could accept them as aprivilege rather than a burden.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThanks are due to Sotheby & Co. for permission

to reproduce Figs. 3-6.

REFERENCES1. GRAY, JAMEs. History of the Royal Medical So-

ciety, 1727-1937. Edinburgh, UniversityPress, 1952.

2. IBID.,p. 73.3. Book Collector 18: 157-158, Summer 1969.4. GAMRSON, F. H. An Introduction to the History

of Medicine. 4th ed. Philadelphia, Saunders,1929. p. 220.

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