Editorial. 361 



We have used the Concilium Bibliographicum scheme of classi- 

 fication, not only for bibliographies, but also for many other kinds 

 of cataloguing (such as microscopic slides, etc.) and find it as 

 simple and easy of application as any practicable scheme could be 

 expected to be. Some of the details of the classification are in our 

 opinion unfortunate, but the principle on which it is based is sound 

 and is the only practicable principle for a card bibliography. And 

 the card bibliography is the practicable one for a working anato- 

 mist. 



This does not imply that it will run itself. Any scheme of 

 anatomical classification which is comprehensive enough to have 

 more than local usefulness must be complicated. At least this 

 is true of the neurological sections, where unless a minute sub- 

 division of topics is employed the vast number of diverse entries 

 will very soon become a useless mass of inaccessible material. 

 The complication is inherent in the subject matter. This means 

 that intelligent and continuous attention must be given to the 

 bibliography from the start or it will break down in use, no matter 

 how perfect may be the system. If only each investigator could 

 take the time to elaborate his own bibliography the problem would 

 be much simpler, but each system so devised is likely to be useful 

 to its inventor alone. If in the course of the further division of 

 labor in scientific work a general bibliographic scheme is to be 

 adopted, the individual must subordinate his own point of view 

 somewhat. In spite of its defects, this bibliography is practicable. 

 Moreover it is sufficiently flexible to enable each individual to 

 adapt it to his own needs and still have the enormous advantage of 

 the prompt issue of titles already printed on cards, with the privi- 

 lege of subscription to such topics only as interest him. It enables 

 one for a nominal sum to purchase information which every inves- 

 tigator needs, but will not and usually cannot procure for himself, 

 and to keep it in available form. Inquiry usually develops the 

 fact that those who find the system impracticable have never spent 

 half an hour in serious study of the theory and detail of its organ- 

 ization. 



The writer has kept his neurological bibliography on library 

 cards catalogued by the Dewey numbers for about a decade. 

 After subscribing to the neurological series from the Concilium 

 (the cost of which has been trifling) these cards have been slipped 



