On editorial revision of titles of medical papers / by Fielding H. Garrison.

  • Garrison, Fielding H. (Fielding Hudson), 1870-1935.
Date:
[1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On editorial revision of titles of medical papers / by Fielding H. Garrison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    1/6
    ^ ^ (Mk&L /yW J. „ ./ n/ ^~ J J . -J— CxA a. 136 !• L ok. >**-<lrCaJL ^t/UKu^io^ a*_ci Q^cM^U c<*£» THE VIRGINIA MEDICAL SEMI-MONTHL rune 25, ON EDITORIAL REVISION OF TITLES OF MEDICAL PAPERS * By FIELDING H. GARRISON, M. D., Washing- ton, D. C., Assistant Librarian, Surgeon General’s Office. Dr. John S. Billings ,to whom all workers for the advancement of medicine are so much in- debted, once gave the following rule's for the composition of a medical paper: “1. Have some- thing to say. 2. Say it. 3. Stop when you have said it. 4. Give the paper a proper title.” These laconic rules are not to be looked upon as a mere ipse dixit, but represent the summa- tion of years of close observation on the part of an experienced bibliographer. Concerning the fourth rule, with which we are specially con- cerned, Dr. Billings said on the same occasion that “every article which is worth printing is worth a distinct title, which should be as con- cise as a telegram and be printed in a special type. If the author does not furnish such a title, it is the editor’s business to make it and he should not be satisfied with such headings as “Clinical Cases,” “Difficult Labor,” “A Re- markable Tumor,” “Case of Wound, with Re- marks.” This is in some sort the gist and con- clusion. of the whole matter, and at the time that Dr. Billings wrote—the International Med- ical Congress of 3881—there were many med- ical papers to which his criticism was applica- ble. To-day the extensive improvements in medical education and the methods of medical journalism have had such effect upon medical literature that apart from occasional ambiguity or obscurity, little exception could now be taken to the titles of medical papers in general. It may be of interest, however, to expand the theme a little further, by way of a theoretical discussion of the subject. The real test of the literary skill of the av- erage practitioner or surgeon is not so much m the writing of learned disquisitions as in giv- ing a correct and clearly stated record of his clinical experiences. The well-reported clin- ical case is the basis of medical literature, and, strange as it may sound, is quite as important as certain kinds of laboratory work, and some- times even more so. As Professor Clifford All- butt puts it: “Much of the work which is done in our laboratories and dignified, not improp- fflly perhaps, with the title of research, much before the annual meeting of the ri?vMM'n-rMeTical Editors’ Association, Atlantic City, N. J., June 5, 1909. plotting of curves, much watching of levers and thermometers, nay not a little morphorlogical dissection and cabinet-making, are really little more than clerk’s work,” for “Bundles and files of facts are not science.” What makes them sci- ence is the synthetic or creative imagina- tion which finds the general laws lurking be- hind related facts. The busy practitioner sel- dom reflects that in properly diagnosing an obscure or difficult case, he is applying the same analytic and synthetic methods which are at the basis of all the great movements of scien- tific endeavor. Such are the treatises of Hip pocrates and Galen, Harvey’s De motu cordis, Morgani’s De sedibus, Sydenham’s, Addison’s, Bright’s,, Virchow’s descriptions of disease the clinical methods of Auenbrugger, Laen- nec and Skoda, the masterpieces of Darwin, the demonstrations of Jenner, Pasteur, Laveran, Koch and Lister, and to come to our own coun- try, the work of William Beaumont, of Daniel Drake, of Reginald Fitz and of Walter Reed. To begin with, assuming a contributor to have sent in an acceptable paper, what should be our criterion of a suitable title “as concise as a telegram ?” The titles held up for censure by Dr. Billings do not fulfil this condition be- cause, at best, they are only glittering gener- alities that tell nothing in particular about the real content of the papers they represent, very much as if a telegram announcing the death of a near relative should say no more than “a rel- ative of yours is dead.” What we want to know in each case is the definite disease, the kind of labor, the site and origin of the tumor, the locality of the wound, etc., and data of this kind can only be obtained by finding what the Germans call the Schwerpunkt or center of gravity of the subject-matter. In printed books of earlier centuries, title pages were, as we know, often lengthy and rambling, not to say maundering, and even now we see things of this kind, titles which remind us of the tend- ency in old plays to announce the state of af- fairs at the outset of the dramatic action by means of some tedious monologue spouted by one of the characters. Fortunately for the modem world, division of labor and the enor- mous demands made upon our time, have even had a salutary effect upon play-writing, and, to-day, a competent stage-manager demands that in any “well-made play” the tiresome mon- ologues should be set aside in favor of crisp