As part of his dedicatory address at the Boston Medical Library, Holmes praised, in particular, the development of periodical indexes. “This idea has long been working in the minds of scholars, and all who have had occasion to follow out any special subject. I have a right to speak of it, for I long ago attempted to supply the want of indexes in some small measure for my own need. I had a very complete set of the ‘American Journal of the Medical Sciences’; an entire set of the ‘North American Review,’ and many volumes of the reprints of the three leading British quarterlies. Of what use were they to me without general indexes? I looked them all through carefully and made classified lists of all the articles I thought I should most care to read. But they soon outgrew my lists…. Nothing, therefore, could be more pleasing to me than to see the attention which has been given of late years to the great work of indexing.” This notebook of Holmes almost certainly contains the classified lists he mentions, with references to articles on anatomy, pathology, surgery, midwifery, chemistry, and therapeutics. Pages 12 and 13 of Oliver Wendell Holmes's (1809-1894) index to medical periodicals
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