The American Journal of the Medical Sciences

The American Journal of the Medical Sciences is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal.

History

The journal was established in 1820 as the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences by Nathaniel Chapman. A new series was started in 1827 under the editorship of Chapman along with William Potts Dewees and John D. Godman. In 1827, the editorship passed to Isaac Hays, who gave it its present name, and helped make it one of the most important American medical journals of the 19th century.

In 1984, the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation became the journal's sponsor. In 1994, 21 percent of submissions came from outside the United States. On the 175th anniversary, the February 1, 1995 issue featured a photograph of Volume 1 from 1820, a brief history and three classic articles were critiqued by contemporary scholars:

Leo Buerger "Thrombo-angiitis Obliterans: A Study of the Vascular Lesions Leading to Presenile Spontaneous Gan-grene," 136 (1908); critiqued by David A. Cutler and Marschall S. Runge of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston

E. Libman and H. L. Celler's "The Etiology of Subacute Infectious Endocarditis," - critiqued by Edward Hook Jr., of the University of Virginia

Norman M. Keith, Henry P. Wagener and Nelson W Barker's "Some Different Types of Essential Hypertension and the Cause and Prognosis," critiqued by Harriet Dustan of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Regarding these critiques, Martinez-Maldonado said:

These were landmark articles that are known worldwide, because they were the first to address these issues, .... It's amazing that there has been little descriptive improvement on these original articles. We know more on the molecular level than they did, but as far as actual description goes, no one has done any better.