TY  - JOUR
T1  - A practice of thoracic surgery
Y1  - 1959/07/25
N1  - 10.1001/jama.1959.03010130118045
JO  - Journal of the American Medical Association
SP  - 1614
EP  - 1615
VL  - 170
IS  - 13
N2  - The beauty of science is that it is rarely static and never complete. The fault inherent in all textbooks is that they present the subject as it was a year or more before the date of publication. This does not mean that textbooks are not necessary. For the student and for the busy practitioner they provide a compact body of knowledge which, if the particular science is not progressing too rapidly, will give them a basic understanding of the subject and serve as a basis for their reading in the current literature. The ideal textbook avoids this fault and fulfills its purpose by presenting each subject historically, showing how and why it has evolved, and by so doing emphasizing the fact that it is still evolving; its great virtue lies in its complete bibliography and in the skill with which a body of literaturen has been digested and condensed. This
SN  - 0002-9955
M3  - doi: 10.1001/jama.1959.03010130118045
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1959.03010130118045
ER  -