New acquisition: Harvey Cushing's "Surgery of the Head"

In 1906, W.W. Keen asked Harvey Cushing, a fellow brain surgeon, to write an eighty-page chapter for a multivolume treatise on surgery. Two years later, Cushing turned over a manuscript of over 800 pages. Condensed to 259 pages, Cushing's "Surgery of the Head" almost immediately established neurosurgery as a specialty. We recently acquired a much-needed first edition of this volume.

 Keen, William Williams. Surgery: Its Principles and Practice. Vol. 3. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, 1908.

Cushing's "Surgery of the Head" is the first chapter of Volume 3.

Our copy carries the bookplate of Harry B. Friedman, M.D.:

Dr. Friedman was a neurosurgeon who collected on the history of neurology and military history.

This volume will be cataloged for the History of Medicine Collection, where it will add to our existing collection strengths in neurology and neurosurgery. I'm also looking forward to sharing this book at next week's History of Medicine I class, when Dr. Lynn Loriaux will be lecturing on Cushing.