The case histories extend over the period 1797-1812. Many cannot be dated exactly and it is unlikely that those dated 1797 and 1802 are the work of Oswald but they may have belonged to one of the partners in the firm of Bell, Wardrop, Russell, and Co., apothecaries and surgeons in Edinburgh, to whom Oswald was apprenticed, 1807-1810. These are followed (folio 100) by medical and diagnostic notes, including recorded observations of a disease prevalent amongst the children of the poor in the spring of 1812.

The lecture notes (folio 167) are undated but are in Oswald's hand, and were taken from lectures given in the University of Edinburgh by Daniel Rutherford, Professor of Medicine and Botany, on the Linnaean system of classification of plants; by James Gregory, Professor of Practice of Physic, on the nature and classification of disease; and by Dr Hamilton, junior, probably James Hamilton, Professor of Midwifery, on intestinal worms.