History of Medicine

• To verify an old journal citation, try searching by author and year using cited reference searching feature in Web of Science. 
• Dissertation Abstracts. Capitalize on the efforts of other researchers. Your topic may have already have been covered but never published commercially. Look for citations published in dissertations since 1861. Titles published since 1997 are available in PDF digital format.
• Trying to find an article where a medical discovery was "first" reported? These references may help:
  • Contributions to the history of medicine [by] Fielding H. Garrison. Introd. by Martin M. Cummings. New York, Hafner Pub. Co., 1966. History of medicine series. no. 27. "From the Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 1925-1935." 
  • Morton's medical bibliography : an annotated check-list of texts illustrating the history of medicine (Garrison and Morton). 5th ed. / edited by Jeremy Norman. Aldershot, Hants, England : Scolar Press ; Brookfield, Vt., USA : Gower, c1991. 
  • Kelly, Emerson Crosby. Encyclopedia of medical sources. Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins Co., 1948. Handy resource for tracking down medical "firsts." The author presents a compilation of the "earliest or best article" for a given topic. 
• Have an unfamiliar journal abbreviation? Search for it in the online version of Abbreviations of titles of medical periodicals to be used in the subject-catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office.
• Tips for Searching PubMed or OVID Medline
  • Restrict a search to the "Personal Name as Subject" field [ps]. For example: varmus h [ps].
  • Also try limiting your search to the biography "Publication Type" field [pt]. For example: biography [pt] AND varmus h
  • Republished seminal articles are noted in Medline with the "Classical Article" publication type filter. For example: Classical Article [pt] AND surgery
  • Also try limiting your search with the "Historical Article" filter for articles about past events.  For example: Historical Article [pt] AND depression

While online databases to find articles are good sources of information about articles in the history of medicine and are convenient to use, there is also a wealth of information in print article indexes.  The following are a selected list of the most important print sources for articles in the history of medicine.