H. WINNETT ORR, M.D., F.A.C.S., 1877-1956 A CATALOGUE OF THE H. WINNETT ORR HISTORICAL COLLECTION AND OTHER RARE BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS American College of Surgeons : Chicago i960 COPYRIGHT, 1960, BY AMERICAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 60-11348 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO MICHAEL LIVINGOOD MASON SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS 1950-1959 FIRST VICE PRESIDENT 1959-1060 CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON THE LIBRARY 1952 TO DATE THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE EDITORS FOREWORD the committee on the library ofthe American College ofSurgeons, appointed by the Board ofRegents, has longfelt the responsibility ofpublishing a catalogue ofthe outstanding collection of books contributed to the Library by Dr. H. Winnett Orr. Doctor Orrfrequently expressed his hope that such a compilation would be published by the College. It is therefore with a deep sense ofgratitude that the Committee congratulates Miss L. Margueriete Prime, the editor, on its completion. Miss Prime and her staff, including Miss Kath leen Worst, in this task, as in all others, have distinguished themselves in the quality oftheir work. The Committee desires to pay tribute to Miss Primefor her years of inspirational service to the American College of Surgeons. Michael L. Mason, Chairman John R. Orndorff, Acting Co-Chairman E. Lee Strohl, Acting Co-Chairman vn H. WINNETT ORR M.D.,F.A.C.S. The Man Dr. H. Winnett Orr, a much loved and distinguished surgeon, died on October 11, 1956. His contributions to surgery are well known. His interest in medical history and his generous gifts to medical libraries and particularly to the library of the American College of Surgeons are less well known and de serve our grateful appreciation. Dr. Orr was born March 17,1 877 at West Newton, Pennsylvania. He was named for his maternal grandfather, the Reverend Hiram Winnett, but he was never fond of his first name, and always signed himself H. Winnett Orr. His father, Dr. Andrew Wilson Orr, was a dentist; his mother's maiden name, Frances Josephine Winnett. He was graduated from the West Newton High School at the age of 15 and entered the University of Nebraska the following autumn. There he lived with a maternal uncle, Dr. Hudson J. Winnett, a busy general practitioner. Young Orr, as an adopted son, helped about the house, harnessed the carriage and went on calls with Dr. Winnett. At Nebraska he was a classmate and fraternity brother of the late Dr. Irving S. Cutter. He often spoke of seeing Willa Cather and Dorothy Canfield sitting together at convocations, of coming to know Roscoe Pound, Grace and Edith Abbott, Drs. George and Gladys Henry Dick. He entered the University of Michigan School of Medicine in 1895 and was graduated in 1899. The following summer he spent some months at Bellevue Hospital in New York. Many years later he walked out of a per formance of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude, saying he had got his fill of that sort of thing 30 years before in the psychopathic wards at Bellevue ! Late in 1899 he returned to Lincoln and began general practice in association with Dr. Winnett. During the summer of 1904, he spent some months in Chicago with Dr. John Ridlon, professor of orthopedic surgery at Northwestern University Medical School. On his return to Lincoln he joined with several other Nebraskans in proposing the building of a special hospital for crippled children. The Nebraska Orthopedic Hospital was established by the state legislature in 1905 as the State Hospital for the Crippled and De formed. As assistant surgeon, superintendent, chief surgeon and senior con- IX PREFACE: H. WINNETT ORR THE MAN sultant, Dr. Orr was associated with the hospital for 50 years. During those early years he was also editor of the Western Medical Review (1899-1906), lecturer on the history of medicine at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, and chief medical inspector of the Lincoln Public Schools (1908). From 1911 to early 1917 he was resident superintendent at the Nebraska Orthopedic Hospital. Shortly after the United States' entry into World War I, he was invited to join the Goldthwait Unit of orthopedic surgeons sent to England at the request of Sir Robert Jones to assist in manning British orthopedic hospitals. He was commissioned a captain on May 18, 1917, served two years in England, Wales and France and was discharged June 1, 1919 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. It was during his months of observation at Whitechurch Hospital, near Cardiff, of the unhappy results of treatment and the long delay in healing that followed many cases of open fractures resulting from gunshot wounds that he gradually became convinced that the continued and frequent change of dressings was an important factor in delaying recovery. He had always been an ardent admirer of Hugh Owen Thomas and a staunch believer in Thomas' oft-reiterated principle of "rest, enforced uninterrupted and prolonged" in the treatment of injured bones and joints. The opportunity to carry out the treatment of open fractures in accordance with this principle came after the close of World War I when it became necessary to transport large numbers of wounded from the hospital center at Savenay in France to the United States. Against grave opposition, he obtained permission to send home patients with open fractures encased in plaster, even though suppurating wounds were present. In spite of the forebodings of disaster from surgical colleagues, the patients did well, and only when instructions to leave the plaster immobiliza tion undisturbed were disregarded did complications, fever and exacerbation of infection, develop. The subsequent widespread acceptance of the "Orr treatment" is a familiar story to surgeons everywhere. It was well told in a fascinating ac count in Harper's Magazine for March, 1943* by the war correspondent, Leigh White. He was himself a patient of Dr. Orr after months of grueling surgical experiences in Athens, Rome, Lisbon and New York for treatment of a shell wound of the thigh and multiple fractures of the femur sustained during a German bombing attack on a Greek troop train in Jugoslavia. of Because the wide publicity accorded Trueta's success in treating open fractures by Orr's method during the Spanish Civil War, the term "Orr- *White, Leigh. "Dr. Orr Packs Them in Plaster." Harper's Magazine, 1943 (March) 186: 380. X PREFACE: H. WINNETT ORR THE MAN Trueta" is often given to this method. With his wide acquaintance with medical history Dr. Orr would probably have been the first to say that it represented one of those principles which in the words of John Homans has been "perennially discovered, discredited, forgotten, rediscovered and re affirmed," and that many men could claim credit for it, but none more deservedly than Hugh Owen Thomas. The many papers which Dr. Orr presented in medical and surgical journals at home and abroad, and his two books, Osteomyelitis, Compound Frac tures and Other Injected Wounds (C. V. Mosby, 1929), and Wounds and Fractures; A Clinical Guide to Civil and Military Practice (C. C Thomas, 1941), constitute an important part of the extensive collection of books and manuscripts he gave over a period of years to the library of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Orr's interest in the history of surgery was furthered by studies in preparation for his lectures on the history of medicine at the University of Nebraska (1903) and by the influence of Dr. John Ridlon, who initiated his postgraduate students into the importance of rest in surgical treatment by having them read Hugh Owen Thomas' book on intestinal obstruction. Later on, seeking historical and empirical precedents in support of his method of drainage and rest in wound healing, he read widely in the history of military and civilian surgery, with the immediate pre- and post-Lister eras as points of initial focus. These studies with those of other aspects of his specialty cul minated in a book: On the Contributions of Hugh Owen Thomas, Sir Robert Jones and John Ridlon, M.D. to Modern Orthopedic Surgery, (C. C Thomas, 1949). His preoccupation with the history of surgery had the effect also of making him an ardent book collector. From about 1 920 until the year of his death, he regularly haunted the principal secondhand book stores of whatever city he might visit. Especially in recent years he carried on an extensive correspon dence with librarians and other authorities about the rare or otherwise un usual items he acquired. These books were all given before his death to the libraries of the Lancaster County (Nebraska) Medical Society, the Lincoln General Hospital, the University of Michigan and, in greatest number, to the library of the American College of Surgeons. The H. Winnett Orr collection in the College library consists of some 2,600 volumes and includes many rare old items, numerous publications marking eras in the history of surgery and orthopedics, individual and collec tive biographies, and books pertaining to the history of institutions. Various writings of Galen appear in the list under dates extending from 1524 to 1856. Undoubtedly the most beautiful edition in this collection is the four-volume Froben publication of Galen's complete works which appeared in 1561 and xi PREFACE: H. WINNETT ORR THE MAN 1562. Moreover that teacher's influence is reflected again and again in such anthologies as Oribasius' Anatomica ex Libris Galeni, 1735, Guido Guidi's Les Anciens et Renomme Auteurs de la Medecine et Chirurgie, 1634, and Gesner's Chirurgica, 1555. A beautiful Priscianus of 1532 occupies an honored place, as does Vesalius' Opera Omnia Anatomica et Chirurgica, of 1725.