Abstract

It is possible to find in the medical literature many articles that have been neglected or ignored, in some cases for many years, but which are worth bringing to light because they report unusual findings that may be of current scientific interest. Resurrecting previously published but neglected hypotheses that have merit might be overlooked because it would seem to lack the novelty of "discovery" -- but the potential value of so doing is hardly arguable. Finding neglected hypotheses may be not only of great practical value, but also affords the opportunity to study the structure of such hypotheses in the hope of illuminating the more general problem of hypothesis generation.

Highlights

  • It is possible to find in the medical literature many articles that have been neglected or ignored, in some cases for many years, but which are worth bringing to light because they report unusual findings that may be of current scientific interest

  • Vosgerau reported consistent and rapid termination of migraine attacks in 10 patients who were treated with injections of magnesium glutamate

  • Value of magnesium bromoglutamate syrup for problems of behavior and psychomotor development of the child. [French] Unusual case of chronic hyperkaluria with serious psychomotor retardation and changes of calciophosphoric and magnesium metabolism. [French]

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Summary

Introduction

It is possible to find in the medical literature many articles that have been neglected or ignored, in some cases for many years, but which are worth bringing to light because they report unusual findings that may be of current scientific interest. A title search of Medline for "migraine AND magnesium" as late as 1987 yielded only the single record by Vosgerau, and a similar but broader search that included medical subject headings (MeSH) yielded only 4 records at that time. The fact that the words "migraine" and "magnesium" both appear in the (translated) title of the Vosgerau paper should not be taken lightly It signals that the author regarded the connection between migraine and magnesium as important enough to justify being the main topic of an entire article, a point perhaps not unrelated to whether a substance ‐disease term ‐ co‐occurrence is likely to be trivial or important, how readily the context of the relationship can be seen, and whether title‐searching should be used to find other such articles

On the question of resurrection
ATP cirrhosis
Observation on subheadings

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