THIS book is in two parts: a biography of Malcolm (134 pages) and a facsimile reproduction of his History of the Belfast General Hospital and the Principal Medical Institutions of the Town, first published in 1851 (by S. & G. Agnew) but long out of print and now rare. Both are wvelcome; their publication in one well-produced and comparatively inexpensive volume is particularly appropriate. Thos...

The need for the historian or social scientist to think carefully about how he or she arranges material was authoritatively described by the historian and philosopher R.G.Collingwood. In his Autobiography (p.81) he wrote:” I had learnt by first-hand experience that history is not an affair of scissors and paste, but is much more like Bacon's notion of science. This historian has to decide exact...