"Apt Abbreviation's Artful Aid" is nowhere more imperative than in the field of medical bibliography. This field is reverting to forest, with much dead wood, forest still penetrable indeed, but whose extent is increasing yearly, monthly, weekly. Each specialty cultivates its corner; beyond, all is pulp-wood. The bibliographer who gleans this field has to keep his wits about him lest he be buried under the rain of leaves from this forest, leaves that are very dry and increasingly fragile with time. The fourfold "A" quoted above enables him to bale up his crop in manageable form. This Artful Aid has its drawbacks, and it is the purpose of this note to show some of brevity's dangers and how we need less,-or is it more?-abbreviation. That is we must guard against reducing words to a meaningless jumble of letters.
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