American Medical Periodicals

American Medical Periodicals, 1797–1900 is an essential collection of serials covering the entire scope of medical history in the nineteenth-century United States. Drawn from the holdings of the National Library of Medicine, one of the premier medical libraries in the world, the collection includes the content of more than twelve hundred journals. It sheds light on all aspects of nineteenth-century American medicine, including important topics such as the evolution of contagion theory, changing ideas about medical ethics, the growth of medical specialization, and the development of medical societies and medical education. The collection also documents both the rich history of unorthodox medicine and the history of closely related fields, such as dentistry and pharmacy; the history of American dentistry, for example, is represented by journals such as the American Dental Review (1858–1863) and the American Journal of Dental Science (1839–1909, with gaps). Taken together, the wealth of material in the collection provides a rich archival source for medical historians and other researchers interested in nineteenth-century American medical history.

The collection fully documents the remarkable growth of nineteenth-century medical serial publishing in the United States. Few medical journals were published in Europe during the eighteenth century, and none were published in colonial America. Following the Revolution, however, American patriotism, the desire for better communication among physicians, and other factors led to the development and rapid growth of a vibrant American medical serial literature. The first medical journal published in the United States, the Medical Repository, was founded in 1797. Originally edited by Samuel L. Mitchell, Edward Miller, and Elihu Smith, it was published quarterly until ceasing publication in 1824. An 1803 editorial in the journal, probably written by Mitchell, described the journal's publication as one part of the great “revolution” in medical publishing then taking place across the Atlantic world. Medical journals, once rare, were increasingly understood as a vital means for transmitting information within the medical community. Indeed, for the editors of the Medical Repository, the advent of serial publishing marked an important new stage “in the history of the human mind,” and “to cultivate or neglect them may well be considered, at present, as a test of the progress or torpor of society” (Preface, p. iv). By 1850 more than two hundred medical journals had appeared, and the number continued to swell over the next five decades. In 1876 one historian of the topic noted that “a vast amount of medical literature … is comprised in what is known as medical journalism. The subject, indeed, is one of such magnitude as almost to preclude the possibility even of touching upon it” (Gross, p. 53).

Of course, most of these journals were local or perhaps regional in scope and circulated only among a relatively small number of readers. Many of them were also short lived, publishing for only a few years—or even less—before closing their doors. Indeed, only a handful of serials achieved the necessary longevity, reputation, and breadth of readership to wield significant influence at the national level. The collection contains a number of these publications, such as the Transactions of the American Medical Association (1848–1882), which reprinted the minutes of the Association's annual meetings and served as an important voice for the orthodox medical community before the establishment of the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1883. The collection is also useful for tracing the early history of some important journals that are not themselves included—for example, the collection includes both the Boston Medical Intelligencer (1823–1828) and the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery (1812–1826, published in 1827 as the New England Medical Review and Journal). In 1828 these two journals combined to form the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal—the precursor to today's New England Journal of Medicine and one of the most important orthodox medical journals in the nineteenth century.

As these titles suggest, the collection illustrates the dominance of Northern cities in orthodox medical publishing during the nineteenth century. The Medical Repository was published in New York, for example, and the next two journals to appear, both in 1804, were published in Philadelphia (the Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, edited by Benjamin Smith Barton, and the Philadelphia Medical Museum, edited by John Redman Coxe). New York and Philadelphia continued to dominate medical publishing over the course of the next century. Indeed, the collection contains almost fifty journals published in New York and more than thirty-five journals published in Philadelphia alone. Publications from other urban areas in the North and Northwest are also represented, including important titles from Chicago and Detroit. Clearly, physicians in the urban North exercised a large and important influence on the course of American medical history.

Yet medical historians err if they assume that the history of American medicine can be fully understood through the pages of the largest and most influential journals. They also err if they assume that a narrative told through the perspective of Northern physicians can capture the complexity of American medical history as a whole. The rich set of documents included in this collection should disabuse scholars of both these notions. Southern medical journals in the collection, for example, include serials such as the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal (1836–1867) and the short-lived Carolina Journal of Medicine, Science, and Agriculture (1825). These and other journals can be used to examine regional issues that cannot be fully captured through a reliance on better-known journals published in the urban North. Physician attitudes toward the treatment of slaves is one obvious example, but other types of regional variation can also be documented, including attitudes toward gender and other social norms, medical concerns related to agriculture, and regional variation in attitudes toward the therapeutic market. Furthermore, an important strength of the collection lies in the remarkable number of small and ephemeral journals that are included. The pages of these journals are filled with fascinating characters and important debates about issues of local concern. These debates not only illustrate the concerns of physicians who practiced far from the bustling cities of the North, they also shed important and sometimes surprising light on broader trends in the history of American medicine as a whole.

The collection can also be used to examine the remarkable history of unorthodox medicine and the bitter history of conflict between orthodox practitioners, Thomsonians, eclectic physicians, and other sects. This represents a particularly important area of future research, as the history of unorthodox medicine is understudied and has had a larger impact on the recent past than is generally recognized. Eclectic medicine, an important and vibrant unorthodox medical sect centered in Ohio, is represented by journals such as the monthly Eclectic Medical Journal (1849–1937, preceded by the Western Medical Reformer, 1836–1848) and the American Eclectic Medical Review (1866–1872). The collection also includes more than twenty journals documenting the evolution of Thomsonian medicine, such as the Medical Advocate (1827–1828) and the Botanico-Medical Recorder (1837–1852), edited by Alva Curtis. These types of journals can be used to document not only the conflict with orthodox medicine but the conflict and fragmentation internal to the unorthodox sects themselves. Curtis, for example, was the leader of the “independent” Thomsonians, who split off from the strict Thomsonians in a schism in 1838, and the pages of the Botanico-Medical Recorder can be used to examine the Thomsonian movement's internal debates. In addition to eclectic and Thomsonian journals, a handful of publications from hydropathy, homeopathy, and other unorthodox medical sects are also included, such as the American Journal of Homeopathy (1838–1839); The Fountain, or Hydropathic Journal (1846); and the Graham Journal of Health and Longevity (1837–1839).

Of course, medical historians are not the only ones who will find American Medical Periodicals, 1797–1900 to be relevant to their work. Scholars from other fields interested in the history of American medicine, science, health, the body, law, and a multitude of other topics should find the collection to be a rewarding source of information about nineteenth-century American thought and culture. The journals in the collection can be used to explore a wide variety of issues related to these and other subjects, including changing attitudes toward marriage and child raising, medicolegal topics such as the involuntary commitment of drunkards, early efforts to reform the therapeutic market, the growing importance of diet and exercise in American culture, and so on. More generally, the collection can be used to shed light on changing ideas about gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and many other issues that animated nineteenth-century life. Given this, the collection should prove useful to scholars in numerous disciplines.

The digitization of the collection promises to make the collected journals widely accessible for the first time. American Medical Periodicals, 1790–1900 was originally published as 750 reels of microfilm. Of course, the publication of the collection in microfilm format was itself an important advance in the ability of scholars to make use of these journals, many of which are obscure and were previously difficult to access without traveling to the National Library of Medicine. Yet even in microfilm format the journals were laborious to explore, and few scholars made use of the smaller journals in anything approaching a systematized way. Digitization considerably expands the ability of scholars to use the collection. As most historians are now aware, digitization makes collections such as this one accessible from any computer that is connected to the Internet. At the same time, the advanced search capabilities made possible by digitization offer new possibilities for scholarship that extend beyond that which is possible with microfilm or hard copies alone. As Charles Upchurch has noted, “the ability to conduct full-text electronic searching of books, periodicals, and government documents is changing the questions historians can ask of their sources, providing the opportunity to search for both overt and passing references to themes traditionally not associated with those searches” (p. 89). However, as Upchurch notes, an overreliance on keyword searches and other search methods made possible by digitization can lead to misleading results, in part due to the fact that articles relevant to a particular topic do not always contain the keywords that scholars might assume are associated with the topic at hand. This is not to downplay the importance of full-text searching and other search strategies made possible by digitization, but it is to point out that, as Upchurch notes, “scholars need to be very cautious about the results obtained using these newer search tools, especially those attached to full-text databases. All the old rules still apply regarding the verification of results” (p. 102). With that cautionary note said, however, it is clear that the digitization of this collection will significantly increase its utility for medical historians and other scholars.

In sum, American Medical Periodicals, 1790–1900 is an important collection of medical journals that sheds important light on the full breadth and complexity of nineteenth-century American medical history. This rich collection of documents will prove interesting and useful to scholars and students for many years to come.

Sources:

• Cassedy, J.H. “The Flourishing and Character of Early American Medical Journalism, 1797–1860.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 38, no. 2:135–150 (1983).
• Gross, S.D. History of American Medical Literature, from 1776 to the Present Time. Philadelphia: Collins, 1876.
• Kahn, R.J., and P.G. Kahn. “The Medical Repository—the First U.S. Medical Journal (1797–1824).” New England Journal of Medicine 337: 1926–1930 (1997).
• Preface to The Medical Repository, vol. 6. New York: E. Bliss and E. White, 1803. Pp. iii–ix.
• Upchurch, C. “Full-Text Databases and Historical Research: Cautionary Results from a Ten-Year Study.” Journal of Social History 46, no. 1:89–105 (2012).

—Joseph M. Gabriel, Florida State University, College of Medicine