Dorland's is the brand name of a family of medicalreference works (includingdictionaries, spellers and word books, andspell-check software) in various media spanning printed books, CD-ROMs, and online content. The flagship products areDorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary (currently in its 33rd edition, published in 2019[1]) andDorland's Pocket Medical Dictionary (currently in its 30th edition). The principal dictionary was first published in 1890 as theAmerican Illustrated Medical Dictionary, including 770 pages. The pocket edition, called theAmerican Pocket Medical Dictionary, was first published in 1898, consisting of just over 500 pages.
With the death of the editorWilliam Alexander Newman Dorland, AM, MD in 1956, the dictionaries were retitled to incorporate his name, which was how they had generally come to be known. The illustrated dictionary had grown to 2144 pages for the 33rd edition.
The dictionaries were historically published bySaunders.
In addition to the Saunders titles in English, there have also been numerous translatedco-editions around the world. Listed below are the latest translated co-editions of the flagship productDorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, together with the languages for the translations and the names of the publishers:
Chinese (28th Edition)—Xi'an World Publishing Corp., Xi'an, China
Indonesian (26th Edition)—E.G.C. Medical Publishers, Jakarta, Indonesia
Italian (28th Edition)—Edizioni Scientifiche Internazionali (ESI), Milan, Italy
Japanese (28th Edition)—Hirokawa Publishing Company, Tokyo, Japan
Portuguese (28th Edition)—Editiora Manole Ltda., São Paulo, Brazil
Dorland's was published for over a century by theW.B. Saunders Company, which was an independent medical publisher during most of that time. In the 1980s and 1990s, W.B. Saunders was acquired first byCBS and then byHarcourt. In 2001, the company was absorbed intoElsevier, where the nameSaunders (without theW.B.) was used as an imprint name. The 2020 33rd edition imprint is Elsevier.
Contexo Media's Dorland Healthcare Information, publisher ofDorland's Medical Directory, appears to be unrelated to Elsevier, Saunders, and the Dorland's family of medical reference works.
Version provided by the Free Dictionary – "The main sources of TheFreeDictionary's Medical dictionary areThe American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Second Edition andDorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Care Consumers [...]."
