By the acquisition in 1908 of Mr. Young J. Pentland’s business, leading Text-books by the most eminent Scottish authors were incorporated, including such well-known books as Cunningham’s Text-book of Anatomy and Manual of Practical Anatomy, Muir and Ritchie’s Manual of Bacteriology, Thomson and Miles’s Manual of Surgery, Waring’s Manual of Operative Surgery, Thomson’s Outlines of Zoology.
The Oxford Medical Publications were awarded the Grand Prix at the seventeenth International Congress of Medicine held in London in 1913. This award was bestowed for the general excellence of the Students’ books produced in the Series, and for the production of new and original work therein.
In 1916 the Committee sustained a great loss in the death of their Editor, James Keogh Murphy. A further heavy loss was sustained at the end of 1919 by the death of Sir William Osler, whose advice and assistance had always been of inestimable value. After the death of Mr. Murphy, the Editorship was temporarily undertaken by Lieut.-Colonel Sir D’Arcy Power, who was responsible for several important additions to the Series, including the well-known Oxford War Primers of Medicine and Surgery. Towards the close of hostilities Captain Robert McNair Wilson, M.B., Ch.B., late Assistant to Sir James Mackenzie under the Medical Research Committee, became Editor, and under his direction further important additions have been made, including Menders of the Maimed by Professor Arthur Keith, Studies in Neurology by Henry Head, Operative Treatment of Chronic Intestinal Stasis by Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, Diagnosis and Treatment of Venereal Diseases in General Practice by Brevet-Colonel L. W. Harrison, D.S.O., Plastic Surgery of the Face by Major H. D. Gillies, C.B.E., R.A.M.C., War Neuroses and Shell Shock by Sir Frederick Mott, K.B.E., Trench Fever by Lieut.-Colonel W. Byam, O.B.E., Clinical Ophthalmology for the General Practitioner by A. Maitland Ramsay, and Tropical Ophthalmology by Lieut.-Colonel R. H. Elliot, I.M.S. The present Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, Sir Archibald Garrod, is a Delegate of the Press and an Oxford author.
The Oxford Catalogue now devotes many pages to the medical list, and the American Branch, by the publication of the encyclopaedic ‘loose-leaf’ Oxford Surgery, has produced an important and valuable adaptation of a British original. In the Quarterly Journal of Medicine the University possesses one of the most valuable scientific journals in the world; and in the other medical publications it administers what is at once a valuable property and a powerful instrument of education. Oxford medical books are known wherever English is spoken.
§ 9. Oxford Books for Boys and Girls
The more recent activities of the Press include a notable enterprise, started by Mr. Henry Frowde jointly with Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, but now carried on by Mr. Milford alone. This was the foundation in 1907 of a new department for the issue of educational works for elementary schools, and of ‘gift-books’, useful and recreative literature, for young people of all ages. The Oxford Reading Books, which headed the list, set a new literary standard for books of the class; and the series established itself not only in this country but in parts of the Empire so remote and so diverse as Australia and Burma. It was followed by further series of reading books, and of books on history, geography, arithmetic, nature study, and other subjects of the elementary curriculum. The part taken by the Press in the educational system of the English-speaking world may now be said to comprehend the whole scholastic field from the infant school upwards.
Concurrently with the school publications, the J. Department, as it is known for convenience, has issued from Falcon Square a great variety of books for the leisure hours of boys and girls. These include finely illustrated editions of classics, such as Robinson Crusoe, Grimm’s Tales, Kingsley’s Water Babies, Alice in Wonderland; books on nature, science, industry, imperial history; miscellanies both instructive and entertaining; stories for boys, girls, and young children; and for the very youngest, picture books of all kinds.