The first edition of this work was published as a paperback by Beck-Verlag in 1995 and was previously reviewed (see IFB 99-B09-166). The designation of this edition as "completely revised" is an exaggeration, since the only change in the text is the addition of 12 biographical entries, bringing the total number to 699. Some black-and-white illustrations have been added, but the list of secondary sources has been omitted, and instead the user is directed to the homepage of the publisher <http://lexika.springer.de/aerztelexikon> "ostensibly to allow for easier updating, but really for the convenience of the publisher. Consultation of the web site revealed that the available data had not been updated from the 1995 edition. Obviously, referral to the web is simply a gimmick, and a presumptuous one at that. This dictionary is hardly worthy of its publishing house, which after all is considered to be the foremost German publisher in the field of medicine; it is really only appropriate as "the ideal gift for doctors and historians," as the publisher's homepage describes it (and even then, only appropriate for less discerning recipients). [sh/crc]

 

This work can be compared with the Niederösterreichische Ärztechronik [Chronicle of Physicians of Lower Austria] (Wien, 1990; see IFB 99-B09-669) in that it is not chronologically organized, as the name seems to imply, but is rather a work of collective biography. But whereas the Niederösterreichische Ärztechronik contained no fewer than 30,000 very brief biographical entries on doctors of all time periods, including doctors still living, the present work limits itself to doctors whose deaths occurred between 1962 and 1997--it is intended to be used as a supplement to an earlier work of the same title compiled by Edmund Guggenberger and published by Möbius in Vienna in 1962. The Oberösterreichische Ärztechronik contains ca. 970 biographical entries of two types: those in the first group are relatively extensive and were written in most cases as eulogies at the request of a doctor's family (and thus cannot be considered as objective evaluations of the subject); for those in the second group, such sources were not available, and the work's editors compiled extremely brief biographical notes. No bibliographical references are given in either case. This work can be only of interest to libraries located in the region in question. [sh/crc]

 

Peter Selg, a rare expert in the literature of anthroposophical medicine, has collected biographical information for 190 people who dedicated their lives to the service of anthroposophical medicine. Entries are arranged in chronological order by date of birth. Only the table of contents indicates that these are reprints and summaries of obituaries, which were compiled by the editor with an eye to emphasizing the medical/therapeutic orientation rather than biographical facts. There is a 16-page source list; all are from anthroposophical periodicals. Unfortunately, people without obituaries or brief biographies are not listed at all (e.g., Felix Adler). The articles themselves lack bibliographic citations, so it would have been helpful to mark the obituaries that cited other sources. Access to specific individuals is only through the name index, and since the source list does not include references, a lookup for someone like Adler leads only to a mention of his name in the biography of another, rather than to the obituary which, once obtained, might be more informative. In Selg's introduction, the names of doctors with articles in the volume are marked. [sh/mm]

 

The practice of the de Gruyter Publishing House, to market standard works for reasonable prices, manifests itself in two forms: first as a paperback special edition of works which are still available in their original editions, and secondly, in reprints with a new introduction. The latter practice appears to be on the rise. For instance, the 2001 reprint of Magnus Hirschfeld's Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes is a testimony to the leading role which Germany played in the discipline of sexual research, which ended abruptly with the National Socialist seizure of power. Marcuse's Handwörterbuch der Sexualwissenschaft contains valuable information on many sexual researchers, such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Iwan Bloch, and, of course, Magnus Hirschfeld, who today are primarily known only by specialists in the field, as opposed to the major figure Sigmund Freud. Freud himself was actually one of the most famous of the contributors to the HdS, for whose first edition in 1923 and second edition in 1926 he supplied the articles "Libidotheorie" and "Psychoanalyse." The history of sex research in Germany before 1933 has been documented in countless publications of the post-war era, and significant titles are cited in the HdS's selected bibliography; in the afterword, previously unknown facts particular to the publishing history of the HdS are presented. The HdS, following its 1923 and 1926 editions, came to the Walter de Gruyter Verlag in 1930 by way of this publishing house's purchase of the original house of Marcus & E. Weber. Max Marcuse (1877-1963), the editor of the HdS and at the same time the scholar who contributed the largest number of articles to it, emigrated to Palestine in 1933, without publishing further. His ABC-Führer durch Sexualität und Erotik (Flensburg, 1962), a popular and enlightening work, did not appear until three decades later, one year before his death. [sh/tk]

 

The clinic library of the Stiftung Krankenhaus für Naturheilweisen [Foundation of the Hospital for Natural Healing Methods] dates back to 1859 when the Homöopathisches Spital [Homeopathic Hospital] first opened its doors. The library currently includes approximately 4,000 volumes and represents the third largest collection of literature for homeopathic and natural healing methods in Germany. This printed catalog is compiled by the bibliographer of Samuel Hahnemann's works, who also edited Hahnemann's Organon der Heilkunst [Organon of Medicine]. The catalog includes newer literature (with general medical titles as well as homeopathic and natural healing works) in addition to older titles purchased from antiquarian book dealers. Thus, volume 2 contains materials from American homeopathic doctors that supplement the otherwise German-language focus. The decision to organize the titles in alphabetical order rather than by subject classification is regrettable, as the indexes (including keyword) do not adequately delineate the special characteristics of this collection. [sh/msc]

 

This small, extremely specialized and very expensive volume makes a most unsatisfactory impression, beginning with its title, which is misleading. The work actually covers only monographs on homeopathy published in the Russian language before 1918. The work is organized as an alphabetical list of authors' names. Under each author, each work is actually entered twice, once under an English translation of its title and then under the actual Russian title. Place and date of publication are given only under the Russian title; the number of pages is not given at all. Many of the works listed are translations into Russian; where the original authors could be identified (the compilers had only the Russian forms of names to work from), their names and dates are added to the entries. The holdings of the university library in Leipzig were checked for original editions of such translations, and when such editions were located, their titles along with their Leipzig call numbers were added to the entries. An appendix lists publications of homeopathic societies by place. There are no indexes. Stripped of its unnecessary double entries, this work would have been more appropriate as a bibliographic essay in a journal of medical history. [sh/crc]

 

The first volume of Who Was Who in Nursing History--unnumbered and still available--was published in 1997 by Ullstein Mosby. That first volume was criticized (see IFB 99-B09-169) due to its insufficient selection criteria, sketchy entries, and notable ignorance of relevant American biographical works (e.g., Vern L. Bullough, American Nursing, New York 1988-2000). This second, now numbered, volume clearly distances itself from the earlier work by providing more biographical information and source documentation, with entries written by a smaller number of qualified contributors. The result is 200 biographies (compared to the 400 in the first volume); some of the 200 entries include revisions of inadequate and poorly researched biographies that appeared in the 1997 publication. The selection process for this volume, however, remains problematic. Included in volume 2 are individuals known beyond nursing circles whose biographies are available in subject encyclopedias (e.g., Cyprianus von Karthago and Katharina von Bora). Shouldn't this publication be used to identify and describe lesser-known figures important in the field of care-giving? Those that might be considered include the Jewish doctor and leader of Jewish care-giving in Germany, Gustav Feldman, or others who played significant roles during the period of National Socialism, such as the leader of the Reich's Organization of German Midwives, Nanna Conti, among others. It is recommended that authors of future biographies have guidelines to structure their articles. One suggested improvement would be for each article to contain a leading paragraph that includes the most important biographical facts; another idea is for the index to cumulate and reference biographies from the previous volumes. [sh/msc]