BIBLIOGRAPHY. 325 



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. 2-18.) 



The Index Medicus for 1919 (second series, Volume XVII) contains 

 984 pages, with an index covering 183 pages, as compared with 776 

 pages and 153 pages respectively for 1918, and 682 and 134 pages 

 respectively for 1917. The rapid increase in size of these successive 

 volumes is largely due to huge invoices of German periodical Uterature, 

 which have been received through various channels since the signing 

 of the armistice. In striking contrast with the medical periodical 

 literature of England, France, and other countries during the war 

 period, this body of German literature has remained as constant in 

 quantity as during the pre-war period. Owing to the different devices 

 which had to be employed to obtain this literature during the war and 

 the different channels through which it was obtained, the indexing of 

 articles in the periodicals has been somewhat irregular as to sequence of 

 dates, but it is believed that all the important German periodicals for 

 1919 and a large part of those for 1920 will be indexed in the current 

 volume of the Index Medicus (1920, Vol. XIX). Since the beginning 

 of the Russian revolution, no periodicals or other medical literature 

 have been received from Eastern Europe, and it is doubtful if these 

 periodicals wiU be available for a long time to come. 



During the past few years, criticisms liave been received of the 

 arrangement of subjects in the monthly numbers in the Index Med- 

 icus, the general trend of opinion being that, for practical purposes, an 

 alphabetical arrangement of subjects, as in the Annual Index of the 

 journal or the Index Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Library, 

 v/ould be preferable to the present arrangement of subjects, which is 

 analogous to the arrangement of books on the shelves of medical 

 libraries. At the request of the editor, the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington sent out duplex postal cards to subscribers to the Index 

 Medicus, requesting a definite decision as to the adoption of a quarterly 

 form of issue for the journal, with the subjects arranged in alphabetical 

 order, or its continuance in its present form. In spite of many inter- 

 esting and informing letters as to the advantage of the older plan to the 

 more studious class of readers, the larger proportion of replies was in fa- 

 vor of the former alternative. After due consideration of the matter, it 

 has been decided to publish the Index Medicus in quarterly form, with 

 alphabetical arrangement of contents, indexing itself as to subjects, after 

 January 1, 1921.. In this form, the journal will have an annual index 

 of authors as formerly, but references under any given subject may be 

 easily found by turning to the successive four numbers. With a 



