“No greater opportunity, responsibility, or obligation can fall to the lot of a human being than to become a physician. In the care of the suffering he needs technical skill, scientific knowledge, and human understanding. He who uses these with courage, with humility, and with wisdom will provide a unique service for his fellow man, and will build an enduring edifice of character within himself. The physician should ask of his destiny no more than this; he should be content with no less.” (Harrison TR, 1950)
It is arguably the most famous of all medical textbooks, with its full title Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. Since 1950, the date of the first edition, it has been used by medical students in the various stages of their training.
Health sciences libraries all over the world offer several editions of this work, which recently saw its 20th edition. In FMUL’s Library-IDC, it is possible to find paper copies and also access the electronic edition, in the Access Medicine Database, with all the advantages it presents: updated text in real time, several hyperlinks that allow to relate the different topics and materials, high resolution images, as well as an extensive package of study tools and knowledge testing. In the Library-IDC collection it is also possible to find almost all editions in Portuguese and English, including the first.
Interestingly, the biography of the creator and publisher of the first five editions, the American doctor who gave the book its name, Tinsley R. Harrison (1900-1978), is almost unknown to students who, day after day, leaf through its pages. It was someone who, according to American pragmatism, invested on the combination of an adequate preparation in clinical medicine with a solid base in Pathophysiology, that is, the physiology of the disease. For many, even today this is the key to the success of this unique book, which is both a classic and a modern reference in medical education.
The history of this unique book allows, throughout its twenty editions, to follow the evolution of scientific knowledge in the field of medical sciences, as well as medical teaching itself, including all the pedagogical tools that Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine has today – illustrations using the most modern photographic and representation techniques, which currently allow an accuracy and rigor that were unimaginable until a few decades ago.
Access Medicine is available in the Digital Library to the entire FMUL community and can be accessed from FMUL’s IP (in person or via VPN).
Tinsley R. Harrison (1900-1978)
Frontispício Harrison’s 1ª edição (1950) - Cota: WB 100 H-24 1950
Harrison’s 14ª edição (1994) – Cota: WB 100 H-24 1998
Harrison’s 20ª edição (2019) – Disponível online
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