Book Notes

Ove Hagelin, comp. Kinetic Jottings: Rare and Curious Books in the Library of the Old Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics: An Illustrated and Annotated Catalogue. Stockholm: Idrottshögskolans Bibliotek, 1995. 192 pp. Ill. SEK 400.00.

This is the fourth volume in a series produced in the past few years by the Swedish rare book dealer Ove Hagelin; the others (all noted in the Bulletin) include two bibliographies of selected treasures of the Swedish Society of Medicine and one of the Karolinska Institute. In his introduction to this book Hagelin notes that his prior work—which turned up, among other things, a previously unknown copy of De motu cordis (1628)—has been compared to that of an archeologist excavating a pharaoh’s tomb. The librarian of the University of Stockholm College of Physical Education (successor to the Royal Institute of Gymnastics), having heard of Hagelin’s past feats, invited him to examine a number of old books kept in the library’s cellar. Hagelin found a collection “poor in books on sports and games but rich in medical gymnastics and kinesiology” and proceeded to catalog a selection of them “designed to give a glimpse of what books may happen to be found in this particular library, or rather to reflect the interests of its donors.” Some of the more notable items represented include Mercuriale’s De arte gymnastica (1577), several early anatomical atlases, and the “amazingly comprehensive” Official Report of the Olympic Games of Stockholm in 1912. Like its predecessors, this volume includes a large number of illustrations, lists its entries in chronological order, and shows both the wit and attention to detail that seem to characterize Ove Hagelin. Its value as a historical tool remains to be demonstrated, but it is a delightful book to peruse.

Rare Books and Collections of the Reynolds Historical Library: A Bibliography, vol. 2. Reynolds Historical Library, no. 9. Birmingham: University of Alabama, 1994. xviii + 309 pp. Ill. $100.00.

This is the ninth item in the publication series of the Reynolds Historical Library of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The series began in 1968 with the original catalog of the collections of the native Alabamian physician Lawrence A. Reynolds, and two volumes of correspondence (of Pasteur and of Osler), but remained dormant until the early 1990s. Volume two of the Bibliography is a fine companion to the 1968 catalog, matching it in format and design, and organized according to the same principles. It includes entries for one new item in the Reynolds collection of thirty incunabula, and more than two thousand additions to the main collection (which now numbers around 6,500), as well as dozens of recent acquisitions in the Daniel Drake, dental, and manuscript collections. Three new collections are also represented: the Pittman Collection, donated by endocrinologist and former dean James A. Pittman; the small antique map collection currently being built by gastroenterologist Gorazd C. Luketic; and the archive of the Southern Surgical Association. The complete two-volume catalog will continue to be a useful tool for bibliographers, antiquarian booksellers, and medical historians.

Scott F. Gilbert, ed. A Conceptual History of Modern Embryology. Reprint. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. xiv + 266 pp. Ill. $24.95 (paperbound).

Published in a cloth edition in 1991, this book includes thirteen chapters by “historians, embryologists, embryologists-turned-historians, and historians-turned embryologists” (p. vii). Chapter titles and their authors are: “The Rise of Classical Descriptive Embryology,” Frederick B. Churchill; “Laurent Chabry and the Beginnings of Experimental Embryology in France,” Jean-Louis Fischer; “The Origins of Entwicklungsmechanik,” Jane Maienschein; “Curt Herbst’s Contributions to the Concept of Embryonic Induction,” Jane M. Oppenheimer; “Spemann Seen through a Lens,” Margaret Saha; “Reminiscences on the Life and Work of Johannes Holtfreter,” Johannes Holtfreter; “The Conceptual and Experimental Foundations of Vertebrate Embryonic Cell Adhesion Research,” Gerald B. Grunwald; “The Philosophical Background of Joseph Needham’s Work in Chemical Embryology,” P. G. Abir-Am; “Induction and the Origins of Developmental Genetics,” Scott E. Gilbert; “Boris Ephrussi and the Synthesis of Genetics and Embryology,” Richard M. Burian, Jean Gayon, and Doris T. Zallen; and “Concepts of Organization: The Leverage of Ciliate Protozoa...