Sir William Osler, a famous 19^th century physician, observed that diagnosis without knowing the literature is like going to sea without charts.  This book provides the database for identifying the state of the art/knowledge related to herpetological species and diagnoses.  It identifies what has been clearly documented and areas for future investigation, providing guidance to epidemiology  as well as to isolated occurrences.  It identifies herpetological diseases which appear to represent potential models of human disease, as well as human diseases which appear to model those identified in amphibians and reptiles.

The interdisciplinary approach of Herpetological Osteopathology: Annotated Bibliography of Amphibians and Reptiles, including both veterinary and human medicine, zoology and paleontology, provides the literary background for understanding diseases of bones and other hard tissues.  The book represents a library for macroscopic osseous manifestations of the spectrum of diseases that have been recognized or suspected in reptiles and amphibians.  Definitions of diseases and abnormalities are provided, followed by an overview of current understanding of the occurrence of pathologies in amphibians and reptiles.  The main body of the book presents the literature from Aristotle to Zwart. The citations are annotated to identify recognized pathology, as well as changes in accepted diagnoses and taxonomic classification.