Index 0

[George Thomas Wilson]

In my 30 plus year career in public health, first as a lab assistant, than as a programmer, and finally as a data processing manager, I have trained myself to approach any subject in a statistical manner. In epidemiology, when studying an outbreak such as AIDS or Ebola, it is helpful to trace the disease back to its origin. This first subject is referred to as “Patient 0”. I have applied this approach to the topic of stand-alone indices.

In this thread I will NOT be discussing the early volume indices (1898, 1899, 1900, & 1905) but instead look at the early “red brick” volumes, particularly volumes III & IV. There was no index in the last issue of volume I (Vol. I, No. 4) dated October 1889. There was however an index for both volumes I & II in the last issue of volume II (Vol. II, No. 5) dated April 1891. This proved to be the only in-issue, multi-volume index ever produced.

While the first two volumes were roughly quarterly publications, with volume III the Society changed its schedule and format to what it referred to as brochures. These were printed on an irregular basis, sometimes with multiple brochures in one month, this lead to them being dated with a month/day/year format. The last issue of volume III (Vol. III, No. 5) was dated February 19, 1892. The top line on the cover reads:

Vol. III, pp. 205-261, I-XXXV, PL. 21        February 19, 1892

However the top line of the first page (page 205) reads:

Vol. III, pp. 205-230, PL. 21                     January 28, 1892

This leads me to believe that the Society had a “stop the presses” moment when they realized that they wanted to combine this issue with another that was ready for printing. The additional material included more articles, the index, title page, table of contents, and various appendices. I must note that while this January date is never documented in any of the lists of special issues, reprints or what have you in the appendices, the abbreviated issue (pp. 205-230, PL. 21) had a 50 copy run on February 18, 1892 as noted on page iv. There is no mention of the January date in any of the literature on the subject (Baxbaum or Nathan) but it does however appear in the 1888-1946 cumulative index along side the correct, February date. The probable reason for this is the fact that a common practice at the time was to remove the covers of magazines when binding volumes into hardbound books. If someone were to reference such a book, they would only have the erroneous January date to go by.

Finally I come to volume IV. The last issue of this volume (Vol. IV, No. 7) has the top line of the cover read:

Vol. IV, pp. 209-215, I-XXIV                      February 20, 1893

The Arabic numbered pages 209-215 were nothing more than the index. The Roman numeral pages include the title page, table of contents, list of illustrations, and various appendices like a list of publications, meeting minutes, treasurer report, and such. There are NO ARTICLES in this issue. Other than the cover and a few appendices it is only a volume index, my “Index 0”.

This practice of having a glorified index as the last issue continued through volumes V and VI albeit with a lot of appendices making them appear to be true issues, but with no articles. It wasn’t until 1896 with volume VII when the magazine went to a monthly publication that the index appears at the end of the December issue, an issue with articles. Note that this was also the first format #2 volume, i.e. no longer “red brick”.

I know Mel is compiling an article on annual, or volume, indices. I sincerely hope that I didn’t duplicate any of his work. This little post is only meant to supplement it, and to give a slightly different perspective.

 

[Melvin L. De Vilbiss]

Tom,

Actually Volume VII did not have the index published in Dec 1896, rather it was published in the February 1897 issue as only the second (and last) index published in a year other than the volume issues were published.

I had to stop work on my paper a few months ago and still haven't been able to pick it back up.

But in honor of the research you are doing I will post on the forum the incomplete work done thus far.

Regards,

Mel

[George Thomas Wilson]

Mel,

I forgot that you had mentioned this to me before.  In my defense, my Dec. 1896 has an index and my Feb. 1897 does not.  They are, however, both 1964 Reprints for whatever that's worth.

BTW, your guide on indexes looks impressive.  I will enjoy reading it.

Yours in collecting,

Tom

[Melvin L. De Vilbiss]

Thanks for this information Tom. I will include it in the final draft sometime next year.

You may recall, I do not collect the individual reprints. This information ads fuel to the "who-knows" factor.

Also, it makes sense that the bound volumes would not indicate these discrepancies as the items would be placed in their appropriate places within each book.

It's all part of the fun!

Mel