Medical/Public Health Literature

Digital Library

Medical Heritage Library. You can shift from Search Metadata to search full text.  Instances with multiple terms on one page should come up first.

Periodical Articles

Health Policy Reference Center offers indexing with  full text, for health care administration, health care financing and economics, health care reform, health services research, medical and health care ethics and social medicine. Worldwide coverage.

Global health (1973-  )  and  Global health archive (1912-1983) cover the global literature of public health

PubMed (1950- ) covers, usually with abstracts, periodical articles on all areas of medicine. Corresponds to the printed Index Medicus, Index to Dental Literature, and International Nursing Index. Includes: OLDMEDLINE, 1950-1965.
--Be sure to look at the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)  at the bottom of pertinent records. Very recent articles may not as yet received their MeSH terms.  So look at older records to find the MeSH terms, and use a variety of keywords as well as MeSH terms to find the new records.
--​The MeSH terms are the same as the Medical Subject terms found in HOLLIS.
--Hit Free article or Try Harvard Library, not the publisher's name to see full text
--You can narrow by going down to the bottom of the left hand column and hitting Additional filters. A list of Article types opens up.  Choose one or more types and hit Show.  The Article Type now shows up in the short list of article types near the top of the left hand column.  Now hit the Types desired.  You can also filter by date range.

--MeSH Database defines MeSH terms and shows their place in the hierarchy. Narrower terms are automatically searched when searching a broader term (called term explosion). Entry Terms section gives related and obsolete terms.

--Obsolete terminology. Medical terms are often changed and new terms introduced. On pre-1960 records, after noting the MeSH terms, switch to Medline display to see obsolete terms under the OT field.

--Continues:

Index Medicus (1879-1926), edited by John Shaw Billings, Robert Fletcher, et al. F. Leypoldt, Carnegie Institution, etc. 45 volumes in 3 series; 1879-1899, 1903-1920 including war supplement 1914-1917 (HOLLIS Record), (1921-1926)
HOLLIS Record
HathiTrust Version (1879-1922)
--Subject arrangement with author indexes.

Bibliographia medica (1900-1902), ed. by Marcel Baudouin. Institut de Bibliographie, Paris, 3 volumes
HOLLIS Record
HathiTrust Version
--Issued during suspension of Index Medicus (1899-1902).

Quarterly Cumulative Index to Current Literature (1916-1926). American Medical Association, 12 volumes
HOLLIS Record
HathiTrust Version (1916-1922)
--Alphabetical arrangement, subjects and authors in one alphabet.

Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus (1927-1956) American Medical Association. 60 v.
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive Full Text
--Alphabetical arrangement, subjects and authors in one alphabet.

Current List of Medical Literature (1941-1959). Army Medical Library; Armed Forces Medical Library, 36 volumes
HOLLIS Record
HathiTrust Version (1941-1958)
--Journal articles indexed; table of contents arrangement with author, subject indexes; use jointly with QCIM since indexed Journals not the same; 1957-1959 the ONLY index.

Index Medicus overlaps broadly with the Index-Catalogue (below), but indexing terms and presentation differ. In some cases more complete. There is an author index; access by article author is not possible in the Index-Catalogue.

More on Index Medicus and related indexes: Finding Older Medical Indexes in Print

See also:
Index-catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office (U. S. Army), Authors and Subjects. Print version:
LOCATION: Countway Medicine: Ref. Z 675 I48
LOCATION: Widener: Med 100.22.1

The Library of the Surgeon General’s office, now called the National Library of Medicine, first published its catalog in book form in 1880-1895. The catalog includes an author and a subject entry for books and just a subject entry for articles. Having finished authors and subjects beginning with the letter Z in 1895, they started a 2nd series covering material purchased since the first series. They did this twice more, until, in the 4th series, when cataloging literature beginning with Mn (as in Mnemonic) for the year 1949, they were overwhelmed by the periodical literature and terminated periodical indexing. The 5th series covers books only. Each volume covers the literature for its letter span until about a year before its publication date. Thus, although series 4 indexes the literature through 1949, authors and subjects beginning with the letter A are indexed through about 1935 only. The Library continued to buy older material, so 17th century books may occur in any series. Use Index Medicus for article author access. Biographical data and obituaries are included.
  • 1st ser.: 1880-95, 16 v.
  • 2nd ser.: 1896-1916, 21 v.
  • 3rd ser.: 1918-32, 10 v.
  • 4th ser.: 1936-55, 11 v.; Covers A - Mn only; 11th volume (Mh-Mn) includes literature through 1949 (v.1:A(1936); 2:B(1937); 3:C(1938); 4:D(1939); 5:E-F (1940); 6:G(1941); 7:H(1942); 8:I-J(1943); 9:K-L(1945);10:M-Mez(1948); 11:Mh-Mn(1955 but indexed -1949)
  • 5th ser. (suppl.): 1959-61, 3 v.; Books only, periodicals not indexed

Subject terms include:

  • India Medicine, native
  • Ethnology
  • Anthropology
  • Anthropometry
  • Medicine (History and condition of), by nations and countries
  • Subject: Negroes dropped in 4th series. When part of a Subject drop e in series 4

Click the periodical abbreviation to obtain the full title.

Also:
Abbreviations of titles of medical periodicals, etc., used in the Index-catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office is useful when clicking the periodical abbreviation does not give full information..
LOCATION: Widener: Med 100.22.10
LOCATION: Available via Google Books

Global Index Medicus offers many locally published journals and documents not included in PubMed.  Includes:

African Index Medicus – AIM (AFRO/WHO)
Index Medicus for Eastern Mediterranean Region – IMEMR (EMRO/WHO) - 1960s- (largely more recent)
Index Medicus for South-East Asia Region – IMSEAR (SEARO/WHO)
Latin America and the Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences (LILACS)
Western Pacific Region Index Medicus – WPRIM (WPRO/WHO)

Abstracts of world medicine. London, British Medical Association, v. 1-45,  1947-1971.
Internet Archive Full Text (some vols. missing)
HOLLIS Record
--Absorbed: Abstracts of world surgery, obstetrics & gynaecology. London, British Medical Association,  1947-1952.
HOLLIS Record

POPLINE(1977- ) indexes periodical articles, monographs, book chapters, technical reports, legal documents, newspaper articles, and unpublished works on reproductive health, population, family planning, etc. Emphasizes developing countries.