54 
lie entered upon that course of medical journalism which was a 
leading characteristic of a great part of his subsequent life. In 
1842, under the name of the London and Edinburgh Medical 
Journal , he started that monthly Journal of Medicine, which, under 
some changes of designation and varieties of editorship, continues 
to be an important vehicle of scientific and practical medicine ; its 
334th number being that for April 1883. 
In 1842 he was appointed physician to the Fever Hospital in 
connection with the Royal Infirmary, and in this capacity he had 
a large experience of the remarkable epidemic of Relapsing Fever, 
which in 1843 occurred in Edinburgh and other towns in Scotland. 
The labour which he bestowed on his hospital work, and the 
accurate details which he preserved of his cases, are a striking 
character of the hard-working nature of the man. His observations 
were given to the profession in the form of a book on this epidemic, 
which had, up to that time, not been so fully and accurately 
described, and he subsequently published some additional remarks 
on the subject in the London Medical Gazette for April 1849. 
Cor mack’s journalistic venture, and his work as a hospital 
physician, did not, however, bring him much in the way of practice, 
and accordingly he migrated to London, where he remained but a 
short while, settling in practice in its neighbourhood at Putney. 
In the English metropolis his journalistic propensities again 
manifested themselves. Besides writing leaders and other unsigned 
articles in some of the London medical journals, he became editor 
of the Association Medical Journal , the organ of the Provincial 
Medical Association. But this he gave up in 1856. The journal 
was much improved under his management, and still exists as the 
British Medical Journal, the organ of that large and influential body 
the British Medical Association. 
Cormack did not, however, succeed in practice at Putney. His 
journalism brought him much notoriety and some ill-will, but it 
was perhaps itself adverse to his success as a practitioner, and it 
was necessary for him to look to something which would add to the 
means of maintaining a rising family. 
An elderly lady who resided at Tours in France required a 
British medical man to be always with her, and accordingly he went 
to France, with the life and language of wdrich he was familiar. 
