BIBLIOGRAPHY. 321 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



Garrison, Fielding H., Army Medical Museum, Washington, District of 

 Columbia. Preparation and publication of the Index Medicus. (For 

 previous reports see Year Books Nos. 2-20.) 



The Index Medicus for 1921 (third series, Volume I) contains 1,126 pages, 

 with an author's index covering 116 pages, as compared with the volume of 

 932 pages, with an index covering 175 pages, for 1920. This shows an increase 

 of 194 pages of subject-matter over the volume for 1920, in spite of the actual 

 space gained through the strictly alphabetical arrangement of the new series. 

 This increase in size is due largely to the remarkable increase in the European 

 medical literature in countries which are gradually recovering from the effects 

 of the war, one feature of this phenomenon being the appearance of a large num- 

 ber of new periodicals devoted to medicine and the biological sciences. The 

 arrangement of the Index Medicus by subject headings in strictly alphabetical 

 order is a new departure, but no difficulty has been experienced by the editors 

 in making this change, since the new arrangement is exactly that employed 

 in the Index Catalogue in the Surgeon General's Library since 1880. It has 

 been found, however, that certain titles which, in the Index Catalogue, would 

 be given a definite place in an alphabetical sequence have been found to serve 

 a better purpose if included under the more general divisions of medicine to 

 which they are related, protected by the usual cross-references. Beginning 

 with 1922, therefore, the table of contents printed at the beginning of each 

 number of the journal gives a complete picture — or bird's-eye view — of the rela- 

 tion of special titles of importance to the larger subdivisions to which they are 

 related and under which they would have been included in the earlier arrange- 

 ment. Thus, under otology, in the table of contents, a specialist in diseases 

 of the ear is referred to "Audition," "Auditory canal," "Deafmutes," "Deaf- 

 ness," "Ear," "Mastoid process," "Nystagmus," "Oto-rhino-laryngology," 

 "Sea sickness," and "Vertigo (Labyrinthine)," as collateral subjects which 

 must be consulted in the alphabetical sequence, if he wishes to cover the 

 literature of the quarter in which he may be interested. Each quarterly 

 number includes the entire literature of the three months preceding the 

 dates specified on the title page of the individual number of the journal, that 

 in the January number, 1921, for instance, covering the literature for October, 

 November, and December 1920. The new arrangement, in effect, affords a 

 miniature Index Catalogue of the literature of medicine for any given quarter 

 of the year. The author index will furnish an alphabetical key to all the 

 authors represented in the four numbers. 



Beginning July 1, 1922, the Index Medicus will be under the editorial 

 supervision of Major Arthur N. Tasker, Medical Corps, U. S. Army, with Dr. 

 Albert Allemann as associate editor. 



