Medical journals: Old, not senescent. A tribute to Revista Médica de Chile on its 135th Anniversary

Abstract

Medical journals, like the Revista Médica de Chile, are the product of a long history of printing, literary styles, and scientific inquiry. They would not have developed without the craft of paper making, the invention of movable type, the need to communicate ideas and observations in a timely and digestible format, and the growth of "natural philosophy" during the European Renaissance and Enlightenment. The proliferation of scientific and medical periodical literature during Europe's industrialization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries followed the emergence of medical science and care as a separate discipline and the creation of common and worldwide professional expectations and credentials. Medical journals continue to evolve with the advent of digital paperless publishing. Prognostication remains uncertain but it seems to me unlikely that printed paper, so called "hard copy, "journals will become extinct any time soon.