Vademecum

A handbook is a small manual, reference work, or other collection of instructions, intended to provide ready reference. A vade mecum or pocket reference is intended to be carried at all times.

Vademecum, a Latin word that roughly means “to carry along”. In the Middle Ages, traveling clerics carried pocket-sized books, excerpts of the carefully transcribed canons, known as Vademecum. In the 19th century a medical publisher in Germany, Samuel Karger, called a series of portable medical books Vademecum.