Homoeopathy, the system of healing originated by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), was based on a system of therapuetics whose first principle was Similia Similibus Curantur, or like cures like. Introduced into the United States in 1825, Homoeopathy kew a spectacular growth in 19th century America. By the turn of the century, Homoeopaths had established a network of some 112 hospitals, 59 dispensaries, 143 homoeopathic medical societies, and scores of medical journals; homoeopathic physicians numbered near 15,000, many of whom were woman, all served by some two-score homoeopathic medical colleges. This immense homoeopathic universe, however, was largely to disappear by the 1920's, and it is an important part of American medicine whose history remains to be written.

In Homoeopathy in the United States, Professor Cordasco provides a basic bibliographical register of homoeopathic medical imprints from 1825 to 1925, a period which covers homoeopathy's beginnings, growth, and decline in the United States. Arranged in three chronological segments [I: Homoeopathic Medical Imprints, 1825-1859; II: Homoeopathic Medical Imprints, 1860-1889; III: Homoeopathic Medical Imprints, 1890-1925], it interprets homoeopathy very broadly "to permit the inclusion of many related titles not strictly medical: included are historical and biographical works, with a representatively large sample of the huge polemical literature which definces the homoeopathic controversy; catalogues of homoeopathic publishers, as well as the ephemera which attest the vitality of any social movement." Homoeopathy in the United States is a basic bibliographical guide to the literature of homoeopathy, a thriving, vital and energetic force in the healing arts of 19th century America.

From the Preface: Medical Publishing in 19th Century America is intended to achieve a number of objectives: primarily, it serves as a vehicle for the re-issue of representative catalogues of 19th century American medical publishers. The catalogues reissued include "William Wood & Company's Medical Publications, 1879-1880" which announces the beginnings of Wood's Library of Standard Medical Authors; "Lea Brothers & Company Classified Catalogue of Medical & Surgical Publications, [1893]," which captures, in time, the eminent Lea firm of Philadelphia at its zenith; and F.E. Boericke's "New Catalogue of Standard Homoeopathic Publications" (1886) which provides an overview of homoeopathic therapeutic modalities at the height of their influence.

In the many years in which I was at work on my American Medical Imprints, 1820-
1910 . . . such medical catalogues constituted a major archival source; they were, even in those years, infrequently encountered, and their preservation is clearly important to American medical history. Their preservation in this volume is a modest effort in that direction. This volume also affords an opportunity to publish out of the vastness of American Medical Imprints, 1820-1910 my "19th Century Medical Literature: A Gallery of Lea Titles," and "Wood's Library of Standard Medical Authors: A Checklist and Bibliographical Guide," allowing these pieces an independent status and, hopefully a greater accessibility. Genevieve Miller's "The Nineteenth Century Medical Press," drawn from the Centenary of Index Medicus provides a focal point of reference. Included as well is "A Handlist of Selected Bibliographies, Catalogues & Related Reference Materials," and I have provided a comprehensively dimensional Index drawing its entries, in the main, from the verisimilitude of the catalogues. The frontispiece is a facsimile of the title-page of Henry H[ollingsworth] Smith (1815-1890), Anatomical Atlas which Lea first published in 1844. (Cordasco, No. 40-1198)