In 1898, when Dorland's Pocket Medical Dictionary was first published, as the American Pocket Medical Dictionary, its mission was to provide a book which, "though handy in size, should be so full and complete as to supply the wants of the practising physician no less than the student of medicine." Its stated goals were "to make the selection of words as complete as possible...the vocabulary strictly up to date. Of necessity, the definitions of terms are brief, but the endeavor has been to make them clear, adequate, and to the point." Just so has the goal remained for 102 years, although admittedly the challenge of being both compact and comprehensive becomes increasingly difficult. As knowledge increases, so too does vocabulary, and the Dictionary now pushes at the limits of what can be termed "pocket-sized," even as attempts are made to add to each new edition as many as possible of the myriad of new terms coined since the last.
To maintain the currency, accuracy, brevity, and clarity which have always characterized the Dictionary, it has been carefully and thoroughly revised and updated for this new edition, drawing extensively on the work done for the 29th edition of Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, now marking its 100th anniversary of continuous publication. Of the over 8100 terms newly added to that dictionary, over 2800 have been selected for addition to the 26th edition of Dorland's Pocket Medical Dictionary. Countless terms have been revised, with concentration on the areas of pharmacology, nuclear medicine, pathology, pulmonary medicine, otolaryngology, endocrinology, hematology, immunology, angiology, and anatomy, usingwhere applicable the most recent official and standard nomenclature guides. Particular attention has been paid to pharmaceutical terms, concentrating on drugs actively marketed in the United States; almost 500 new drugs have been added to the Dictionary and many outdated or rarely used ones deleted. To make room for the many new terms without increasing the size of the book, the vocabulary has been examined ruthlessly, and over 1600 outdated or less valuable terms have been deleted. In particular, the difficult decision was made to remove most veterinary terms not directly associated with human disease, as well as many of the infrequently used Latin and Greek terms for anatomical structures which have common names used almost exclusively.
The result is an edition that upholds over a century of tradition, following the example of its predecessors by being both compact and comprehensive, and by providing a clear, accurate, and concise guide to the spelling, pronunciation, and vocabulary of medicine. We hope it will continue to be as much help to its current readers as previous editions have been to past generations.
Patricia D. Novak, PhD
Lexicographer
