Treatise on the Venereal Disease

VI

I have sought to present each workSchrift as briefly as possible, in order to give the reader an overview—or rather an extract—of everything that has been observed and written about this important disease until now. It would perhaps be unfair to expect or demand completeness from an author who undertakes to work through such a vast field alone. Completeness The author uses the term "Vollständigkeit" to refer to an exhaustive bibliographic record. is the merit to which I make the least claim. Some writings must necessarily have escaped my attention; and one will find it easier to name a single book that I have overlooked than to bring together the 1,800 books of which I provide accounts and extracts here.

I have seen and read almost all of the named writings myself; and, for the few that I could not obtain, I have used the reports found in reputable journals and other books. Significant errors regarding titles and summaries of contents will therefore rarely be found: perhaps only, or at least primarily, among the few books that I know only from Haller's bibliographiesHallerſche Bibliotheken Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777) was a monumental Swiss scientist who compiled massive bibliographies of medical knowledge; Girtanner here critiques their accuracy despite their fame.. These bibliographies—I say it reluctantly—are very unreliable sources of literature. They swarm with errors of all kinds, and are full of titles of books