Friday fun: It came from the stacks, groovy shorthand edition

Dig that cover.

Before dictation machines, tape recorders or speech recognition software, there was shorthand, an abbreviated writing method that increases speed of writing. When The Medical Secretary’s Manual?áburst onto the scene in 1966, it differed from other medical shorthand books by offering clinically oriented material to accompany the dashes and swoops that encompass stenography. A 1967 JAMA review observed:

Each section is devoted to a particular system or organ of the body. Before confronting the reader with definitions and shorthand symbols for each specific term or phrase, Miss Eshom provides a simplified description of the system under discussion and frequently includes helpful schematic drawings. This background information distinguishes her book from the usual text of medical shorthand.

For avid note-takers with an aversion to technology medical shorthand can still be useful, and indeed, those in need of a simplified overview of anatomy and medical terminology may find the clinical information interesting as well. I suppose that is why this book is still up in the library stacks, keeping the Sixities alive.