Wien & Leipzig, Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1884-1888. 6 volumes, over 4650 pages. 8vo (15 x 22 cm.) Original publisher's cloth, spines gilt lettered.
A Reprint edition (Mansfield, 1995) in a limited edition of 125 copies. Garrison & Morton, 6716: "This is one of the best sources of medical biography up to 1880". Roos, "Medical Reference Works": 'This work is invaluable for its "biographical sketches", listing principal publications, of some 17.000 physicians who had arrived at maturity before 1880. References at end of each article". Later supplements to Hirsch added biographical information about physicians who had come to prominence since 1880. Those supplements not forming the original edition published by Hirsch himself will not be included in this reprint edition. It is felt that later supplements and corrections, though useful, must be used with caution because of duplicate entries, editorial defects, errors, and misprints. According to Roos, those errors make the original edition as important as ever, and by no means superceded by later supplements.