College and Research Libraries


the several countries visited. O u t of his 
observations D r . R a n g a n a t h a n has en-
deavored to mold a plan f o r the libraries of 
India. Like his other works, this volume 
contains many penetrating statements which 
illustrate the a u t h o r ' s originality and g r e a t 
capacity to comprehend library problems. 

Public Library Provision and Documenta-
tion Problems contains f o u r papers on public 
library problems and legislation in India, and 
20 papers on various problems of documenta-
tion. In the l a t t e r group are papers on 
documentation in several subject fields, 
abstracting, and a r r a n g e m e n t of materials. 

In the final paper, on " I n t e r n a t i o n a l Co-
operation," D r . R a n g a n a t h a n expresses a 
hope for the establishment of a comprehen-
sive Indian Subject Bibliography. 

T h e third edition of the Colon Classifica-
tion suggests the continuing interest in the 
scheme of arrangement that D r . R a n g a n a t h a n 
has been enthusiastically supporting. Stu-
dents of classification may be induced to read 
D r . Ranganathan's remarks on the Colon 
Classification which appears in Shera and 
Egan's recent volume, Bibliographic Organi-
zation (University of Chicago Press, 1951). 
—Maurice F. Tauber, Columbia University. 

Father of Plastic Surgery 
The Life and Times of Gaspare Tagliacozzi, 

Surgeon of Bologna, 1545-1599, with a 
Documented Study of the Scientific and 
Cultural Life of Bologna in the Sixteenth 
Century. By M a r t h a T e a c h G n u d i and 
J e r o m e Pierce W e b s t e r . P r e f a c e by 
A r t u r o Castiglioni. N e w Y o r k , H e r b e r t 
Reichner, 1950. xxiv, 538p. 77 plates. 
$15.00. 
T h i s volume, while it is a biography of the 

" f a t h e r of plastic s u r g e r y " addressed to the 
general reader, is also a dynamic picture of 
life in Renaissance Bologna. I t is both an in-
teresting and informative w o r k . 

T h e collaboration of a distinguished plastic 
surgeon, D r . W e b s t e r , with t h a t of an accom-
plished archivist of Italian Renaissance ma-
terials, D r . G n u d i has produced a great w o r k 
of scholarship which dispels many previous 
e r r o r s relating to the great pioneer of plastic 
surgery. A t times, the publication reads like 
a detective story with the authors piling the 
evidence higher and higher in order to r e f u t e 
previous erroneous statements. T h e i r docu-
ments are given fully in English and are re-
peated in the original L a t i n or I t a l i a n in an 
appendix of some 70 pages. T h e authors 
provide an English translation of the preface 
to Tagliacozzi's w o r k De curtorum chirurgia 
per insitionem, 1597, reproduce all of its 
elaborate illustrations, reprint in full Alex-
ander Read's translation of much of T a g l i a -
cozzi's book, and provide a comprehensive 
bibliography and index. 

T h e story of the publication of T a g l i a -
cozzi's work, of the difficulties encountered in 

the legal printing of such a volume, of the 
formalities and red tape involved and of the 
almost immediate pirating of the volume by 
others is a most interesting commentary 
upon publication activities in the sixteenth 
century. 

T h e book is a beautiful piece of typography. 
Appropriately it has been printed and bound 
in Bologna. T h e pictorial initial letters in-
corporating scenes f r o m Bologna or f r o m 
Tagliacozzi's w o r k w e r e especially designed 
by Ivan Summers. 

T h i s publication should be of additional 
interest to librarians, f o r while it represents 
the culmination of more than 20 years of 
painstaking research, involving many archives 
in Italy, it is based in large measure upon 
publications amassed in a single special col-
lection of a university library. M a n y li-
b r a r i a n s take a dim view of special collections 
for a variety of reasons. O n e of the prin-
cipal reasons which give a librarian a sense 
of f r u s t r a t i o n , is that so many collections 
seem to have been gathered solely f o r the 
love of the collecting and with no intention 
of or provision for putting the collection to 
work. 

T h e more than 12,000 volume J e r o m e P . 
W e b s t e r L i b r a r y of Plastic Surgery, lovingly 
and carefully gathered by its donor, not only 
provides the l i t e r a t u r e to support the day-to-
day practice of plastic surgery, but has now 
been utilized to produce a great w o r k of 
scholarship in the history of the Renaissance 
a n d of s u r g e r y . — T h o m a s P. Fleming, Co-
lumbia University. 

388 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES