The finest instruments ever made: a bibliography of medical, dental, optical and pharmaceutical company trade literature, 1700–1939

CHARLES TRUAX, The mechanics of surgery, comprising detailed descriptions, illustrations and lists ofinstruments, appliances andfurniture necessary in modern surgical art (1899), with an Introduction by James M. Edmonson, Norman Surgery Series, No. 1, San Francisco, Norman Publishing, 1988, 8vo, pp. xliii, 1024, illus., $145.00. This reprinted reference book is much more than Chicago-based Truax Green& Co.'s surgical instrument catalogue for 1899 (prices are not given). It starts with a brief history ofthe evolution of surgical instruments and proceeds to describe their manufacture and their care. Thereafter the book follows the familiar modern instrument catalogue format, but with better illustrations, and notes of the instruments' use. Because Truax Green & Co. both manufactured and imported (from Europe) the book shows a cross section of almost all the instruments in world use at the end of the nineteenth century. The lists of instruments required for each set-piece operation would have made the original invaluable to the theatre sister or scrub-nurse of the time. Today's theatre sisters would enjoy and learn from it, but its great value today is to those who collect surgical instruments or who curate collections. Dr Edmonson is the Curator of the Dittrick Museum of Medical History in Cleveland, and his introduction to Truax's magnum opus is wide-reaching and well documented. He defines the practical difficulties which Truax overcame and points out (p. ix) that currently