Add to ORKGMy introduction to documentary editing differs from that of other scholarly editors. They are scholars who became editors; I am an editor who found a project in medical history. With an M.D. degree, I had written many articles on health issues and had edited a medical society journal. In 1999, I began researching the manuscript of Joseph Mersman (1824-1892), an obscure man who was a whiskey rectifier. From 1847 to 1864, Mersman kept a diary and made entries in English, French, and German. His 300-page record, at the Missouri Historical Society, describes life in Cincinnati and St. Louis, including the 1849 cholera outbreak. After the epidemic, Mersman visited a brothel. Soon he had secondary syphilis and described his treatment: tea made fr...