The Librarian Emeritus of the John Crerar Library, Chicago, stresses the value for the physician of 'historical mindedness'. Such an attitude gives us information and—what is of greater value—increased sense of continuity with the past. An awareness of the genesis of scientific and philosophical thought throughout the ages provides the physician with a greater appreciation of his relation to his work, his patients, and the problems of his patients and practice as part of his culture rather than as isolated mechanical problems of diagnosis and treatment.