abbreviations for medical journal titles

Abbreviations for Medical Journal TitlesBY FRANK B. ROGERS, M. D., Director

THELMA CHAREN, Indexing ReviserNational Library of Medicine

Bethesda, Maryland

INTRODUCTION

T HE drive for standardization is a hallmark of technology; the need forstandardization increases with the growth of technology. Activity towardstandardization of bibliographic practices has been stirring throughout thepast century, and during the past decade this movement has received addedimpetus from the advent of mechanization on the publication (secondarypublication) scene. Various standards bodies have concerned themselves atorganizational, national, and international levels with bibliographicalproblems such as uniformity of publication methods, journal format, trans-literation systems, classification, computer codes, and so forth. It is not sur-prising that the problem of journal title abbreviation looms prominently.As the body of scientific literature grows, so the need for uniformity of

citations grows. In this article we are not concerned with the form andstyle of the citation revolving about the author name, volume designation,pagination, or year of publication, although there is ample evidence of vari-ety in these matters. Here we are concerned with the problem of the journaltitle abbreviation; we consider as in scope only conventional systems, anddo not treat the four-letter codes of G. E. McCasland (1), the coden ofCharles Bishop (2), the sigils of J. B. Reid (3), and the like.Journal titles are repetitively recurring elements in lists of references ap-

pended to primary works, in citations of original sources of abstracts, and,overwhelmingly, in bibliographies and indexes to periodical literature. Theneed to abbreviate stems from the need to save space and, therefore, costsof publication, and the need to save time, as in compilation. The need foruniformity stems from the indistinct boundaries of the various scientificfields, the existence of multiple secondary publications which are consultedduring the course of even a routine bibliographical search, and the con-venience of editors and authors concerned with the stylistic practices ofmany different primary journals.The ideal journal title abbreviation is first of all brief; then it is clear,

unique, informative as to the language of the original, indicative as to scopeof the publication, easily remembered and used, and universally applicable.The actual must often fall considerably short of the ideal; the various ele-

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FRANK B. ROGERS AND THELMA CHAREN

ments are at war with each other. The ideal of brevity must often conflictwith the need for some minimum redundancy to accommodate the otherobjectives. In practice, we must try to find abbreviations which combinethe greatest number of desirable qualities with the least sacrifice or com-promise of other desiderata.

Brevity is an obviously desirable attribute, but mere economy in wordlength should not be achieved at the expense of clarity. The abbreviationshould be "self explanatory either alone or in its relations" (says the Index-Catalogue Synopsis of Style, 1937, p. [5]). It need not, however, be in a formwhich can serve as a base for verbatim reconstruction of the title; on thecontrary, it need in this regard serve only as an identification tag-a shortlabel allowing one to locate the particular title unequivocally.Any code should eschew "l'arbitraire, l'empirisme et une certaine fan-

taisie," which Gabrielle Odend'hal (4) deplores as the basis of too manylists of title abbreviations. Place (5) gives his "rules of three C's" in formulat-ing abbreviations: conciseness, completeness, and correctness. We would adda fourth: consistency. Periodica Medica (1952) says: "All title abbreviationsmust be a compromise between the desirable and the achievable." This"compromise" could be entertained as a fifth "C."The characteristic most difficult to attain is that of universality of applica-

tion. A great obstacle to universality is the multiplicity of systems existingtoday-systems used by individual journals, major publishing houses, greatindexes, special disciplines, national bodies, and those proposed for inter-national adoption. But what we are here chiefly concerned with in regard touniversality is the ability of the system to cross disciplines, embrace theentire scientific field, and be applicable to the products of many countriesand languages. It is not satisfactory to have one system for chemistry andanother for the biomedical sciences; in this case, what happens to the bio-chemical titles? And we are not interested in limited schemes. If a particularbibliography lists articles from only seventeen journals, then those journaltitles may have simple arbitrary abbreviations, even single letters of thealphabet, but this lack of compatibility with wide schemes is, under mostcircumstances and for most major purposes, to be deplored. We are herenecessarily concerned with medical journal titles; our arguments and historyand examples bear predominantly on this field, but we insist that anyscheme, to be really meaningful and useful, must be susceptible to incor-poration into a larger, total scheme, even though that scheme be emergent,rather than actual.

Just as any reasonable system must consider all of science in relation to aparticular specialized segment, so any system must consider historical per-spective in relation to the present and, indeed, the effect of common pat-terns on future creations. Many journals existing in the past are defunct;

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ABBREVIATIONS FOR MEDICAL JOURNAL TITLES

many have been resurrected under the original title; many reappear undernew titles. Many new journals have been created which, though having nohistorical continuity with the first journal of the name, bear titles resemblingthe original. Any reasonable system must try to avert major confusions re-sulting from conditions such as these, but it would be absurd to insist thatall journal title abbreviations must be unique throughout all time; after all,volume numbering and dates also have prominent distinguishing functions.Many systems are proposed, but few are chosen. Each successive system

is declared imperfect and unsuitable; lamentations arise; there are pleas foran Ariadne's thread to lead us out of the labyrinth of variations. But eachthread is acceptable only to a particular Theseus of bibliography; the criesand lamentations are renewed, and new systems arise. While there is almostunanimous agreement on the need for standardization, there is continuinginternecine controversy regarding the right system, and the suitability andauthority of the standardizing agencies. Kent (6) feels that standardizationshould be based on compilations by librarians; Brode (7) decries the activitiesof "professional abbreviators"; more temperately, Sheppard (8) (in hiscriticism of the World List) cites as the desideratum of any list of abbrevia-tions "title contractions free from ambiguities, indicative of the language ofthe originals, and full enough for a reader of any nationality to reconstructthe title sufficiently to enable him to find the title-entry easily in an alpha-betically arranged catalogue of periodicals." (We may merely note, perhaps,the opinion of Lorph&vre (9) to the effect that "I am against all abbrevia-tions. They let the bibliographer save a little time, but make the poorresearchers, who have to reconstruct an array of letters sometimes havingno apparent meaning, lose 10 or 100 times more. ..")The discussion which follows is divided for convenience into several sec-

tions: first, a brief historical survey by country, and a look at developmentson the international scene; next, a look at the major medical and paramedicalsystems; finally, an exposition of the National Library of Medicine positionand its rationale, as exemplified in the Index Medicus.

I

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

United States

The Index Medicus, compiled under the supervision of John Shaw Billingsand Robert Fletcher, appeared in 1879; it listed 737 journal titles and theirabbreviations. In the next year the Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Sur-geon General's Office was published; its rules for abbreviation and its list of2,342 abbreviations with corresponding titles were succinct and clear. Ofthis 1880 list, Dr. Walter Artelt comments: "Had these well thought out

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rules become general practice at that time, the many discussions whichhave been going on for over 40 years as to the most useful method of ab-breviating periodical titles would not have been necessary" (10). When, in1950, the Current List of Medical Literature superseded the Index-Catalogue, thissystem of abbreviations was retained (11).

In 1916 the American Medical Association began publication of itsQuarterly Cumulative 'Index, listing 157 journal titles and their abbreviations.In 1927 this became the Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus; in its first volume,as in its last (Volume 60, 1956), it listed 926 journal titles and their abbrevia-tions, but no statement of principles accompanied the lists.

In 1922 the American Chemical Society published a list of 1,010 jour-nal titles and their abbreviations as used in Chemical Abstracts; a 1960 listbrought the list of titles and abbreviations to more than 13,000. The latestedition of the Chemical Abstracts list states that the journal title abbreviationsare those "adopted years ago as an international standard for chemistry bythe International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. They have alsobeen adopted for its journals by the American Institute of Physics and bymany individual writers, editors, and publishers in their work" (12).

In 1954 Biological Abstracts (Volume 28) published its list of periodicaltitle abbreviations, containing 2,416 entries; no statement is offered toexplain the rules followed. In 1960 the Conference of Biological Editorspublished its Style Manual for Biological Journals. This manual treats theproblem of journal title abbreviations, lists 228 abbreviations of words usedin citations, and follows this with 110 sample journal titles using these words.The manual instructs the user to "Follow the abbreviations listed by TheChemical Abstracts Services (1956-1960).. .. If no abbreviation is found, usethe following rules from the International Code for the Abbreviation ofTitles of Periodicals (ISO/R4- 1953)" (13).

In dentistry interest in the problem was aroused when, in 1931, BernhardW. Weinberger submitted for the approval of the International Dental Fed-eration a scheme for dental periodicals. Dr. Weinberger published his spe-cific recommendations in the form of lists of words and examples of ab-breviations for American and British titles of dental journals in the BULLETINof the Medical Library Association (14) and in Dental Survey (15) in 1936, inrevised form. Despite the early enthusiasm for standardization, the ab-breviations used by two major dental indexing services, the Index to DentalLiterature and Dental Abstracts, differ from most others.

In 1940 the American Standards Association formed its Committee Z39on Library Work and Documentation. The Committee is at present spon-sored by the Council of National Library Associations. Since the AmericanStandards Association is the national standards body and, as such, a partici-pating member of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO),

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it is to be hoped that Z39 co-ordinates its work with the ISO TechnicalCommittee 46, which deals with documentation standards. One of Z39'splans for the 1960's is the collection and correlation of rules for abbreviationsused by major American indexing and abstracting services.

Great Britain

The impetus for standard journal title abbreviations began early in thepublication of the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature, and culminatedin the first edition of the World List of Scientific Periodicals of 1927, whichcovered over 24,000 titles and included a set of rules drawn up by its editors,A. W. Pollard and WV. A. Smith. An enlarged second edition of the WorldList appeared in 1934 with only slight differences in abbreviations whichwere "necessitated in order to comply with the system recommended by theInternational Meeting held by the International Institute of IntellectualCo-operation, a system which is practically the old World List system, withslight modifications to suit foreign requirements" (16). The third edition ofthe World List in 1952 ("of the order of 50,000 entries"), under the editorshipof W. A. Smith, F. L. Kent, and G. B. Stratton, followed.The British Standards Institution, with its committee formed of the Library

Association, ASLIB, and other interests, constitutes the national representa-tive of ISO TC 46. This BSI committee undertook in 1948, with Francis L.Kent, co-editor of the World List, to examine the question of title abbrevia-tions. Mr. Kent subsequently represented both the BSI Committee and theWorld List at the 1948 meeting of ISO at The Hague. In that year, also, theRoyal Society Scientific Information Conference urged the use of the WorldList system of abbreviations and recommended the incorporation in latereditions of "minor changes of rule internationally agreed upon" (17). As itturned out, the ISO draft recommendation of 1952, approved by a majorityof the member bodies, was issued too late for application to the third editionof the World List, whose abbreviations were still based on the League ofNations' Code international d"abre'viations des titres de periodiques.

In 1946 a convention of editors of British biological journals had met underthe auspices of the Biological Council and voted in favor of a standard listof abbreviations. A composite list of numerous private and public lists in usein the field appeared in 1949, issued by the Biological Council, in the formof A List of Abbreviations of the Titles of Biological Journals, and in the main wasbased on the second edition of the World List (17).

Germany

In 1912, following a proposal regarding uniformity in journal abbrevia-tions made by Heinrich Joachim (translator of the Ebers Papyrus) at theannual meeting of the Vereinigung der Deutschen Medizinischen Fachpresse,

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a commission was set up to standardize title abbreviations. The commission,under the chairmanship of Julius Schwalbe, editor of the Deutsche Medizi-nische Wochenschrift, drafted a list based on Index-Catalogue forms whichappeared in 1914 (18). There was a revision in 1920, followed by a secondrevision sponsored by the pathologist Ludwig Aschoff and furthered by MaxKunst, director of the Deutsche Arztebiucherei, which appeared in 1928 asthe first edition of Periodica Medica, containing 1,719 titles. The fourth editionof Periodica Medica, covering 12,624 titles, edited by Walter Artelt, EdithHeischkel, and Carl Wehmer, was published by Georg Thieme Verlag in1952. The introduction to the fourth edition details the history of the variouseditions, gives the rules followed, and states that it tries "to find a middleroad between the old citation practices of Periodica Medica and the interna-tional rules, and also to observe more carefully the national practice, es-pecially in the United States, than was done in previous editions" (19).

In 1927, the year before the publication of Periodica Medica, Werner Rust,Librarian of the University of Berlin, published his Verzeichnis von unklarenTitelkarzungen deutschen und ausldndischen Zeitschriften. In addition to identi-fying the "unclear" titles, Rust proposed for each his abbreviations asapproved by the librarians Blass, Keydell, Figulla, and Prinzhorn; these hesubmitted to the 1927 library congress at Dortmund (20).

In 1928 the Deutsche Norm-Ausschuss incorporated World List principlesinto the draft standard DIN Vornorm 1502: Zitiertitel; Grundsatze fur dasZitieren wissenschaftlicher Zeitschriften. In 1929, at the First World Con-gress of Libraries and Bibliography, Prinzhorn found that German editorswere able to adapt World List forms to their needs (21). When the Codeinternational appeared in 1930 and its supplement in 1932, Germany adoptedthem in its standard DIN 1502: Zeitschriftkurztitel.

In 1960 the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek of the East German Republicpublished a list of about 1,800 medical journals, entitled Wo sind Welche?Medizinische Zeitschriften in der DDR (22). The list gives full titles and ab-breviations which are somewhat inconsistent in pattern; capitalization iserratic and abbreviation of individual words is cavalier.

France

As early as 1897 Charles Richet, in his Dictionnaire de physiologie, discussedat length the problem ofjournal title abbreviations. He had presented to the1895 International Congress of Physiology at Bern, in the names of Bowditch,Kronecker, and Mosso, a proposal regarding abbreviations, which wasadopted. It concerned a brief code for 15 of the more frequently cited journalsin physiology literature. By the standards to which we have become ac-customed they are most unsatisfactory, even though the titles recur, asRichet says, "sans cesse"; J. P. for Journal of Physiology, Z. B. for Zeitschrift

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fur Biologie (23). One wonders what compromise would have been made forthe Journal de physiologie, which was not founded until 1899, and of whichRichet was one of the editors from 1917 to 1935.

In 1944 the Association Francaise de Normalisation published its Coded'abre'viations et titres de pe'riodiques en langueframjaise (24).

In 1948 the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique published inits Bulletin analytique a list of journal abbreviations (25). Its most markeddifference from other systems is its treatment of the place of publication ofjournals.

Switzerland

The Association Suisse de Documentation prepared for the AssociationSuisse de Normalisation its Titres de pe'riodiques: Code d'abre'viations whichserves as standard SNV. 90 100 (26). The Swiss code differs from the ISO/R4in only a few points. For example, the Swiss code indicates plural forms bythe use of a double apostrophe ("), and in titles beginning with personalnames the given name may be disregarded although the family name mustnot be abbreviated. The Belgians once favored adoption of the Swiss code astheir national standard, but both Belgium and Switzerland are signatory toISO/R4.

In 1958 S. Karger, the Swiss publishing house, published its KurzeAnleitung zur Abfassung von Manuskript und Literaturverzeichnis mit einer Liste derabgekurzten Zeitschriftentitel der meist zitierten medizinischen Periodica (27), whichappeared also in English under the less exact title, Rulesfor the Preparation ofManuscripts and Bibliographies with a List of Abbreviations of Titles of CurrentMedical Periodicals (28). This list of 1,260 of "the most frequently cited medicalperiodicals" appears to correspond closely with World Medical Periodicals,with a few exceptions. As in the list of the Centre National de la RechercheScientifique, all adjectives are set in lower case regardless of the linguisticpractice of the vernacular. The place of publication (to distinguish betweenjournal titles) follows the title abbreviation after a comma.

Scandinavia

In Denmark national activity toward standardization was marked in the1930's by the industry of A. G. Drachmann of the Copenhagen UniversityLibrary. The Danish Standards Association participated in various inter-national meetings on the abbreviation of journal titles, but its dissentingopinions on the specific forms of abbreviations were overruled in the finalvotes. Resuming work after World War II, the Danish association solicitedthe help of the Swedish Standardization Association. Meeting in Gothen-burg in 1946, the Danish and Swedish bodies devised their proposals regard-ing the use of plurals and prepositions, which appeared acceptable at the

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International Organization for Standardization meeting at The Hague in1948; but at Ascona in 1950 the World List rules prevailed. The 1951 Romemeeting decided against submitting to the nations for study a list of wordsappended to the international standard, and, since the various national com-mittees were expected to furnish their own lists, the Danish committee feltfree to work on its own preferences. The Danish Standardization Associationin 1953 published its Dansk Standard 909; Fortkortelse af Tidsskrifttitler; itseleven paragraphs closely followed the recommendations of the InternationalOrganization for Standardization (29).

USSR

In 1957 the Akademiia Nauk SSSR published a compilation of journaltitles under the editorship of P. I. Nikitin, Ukazatel' Sokrashchennykh i PolnykhNazvanii Nauchnoi i Tekhnicheskoi Literatury (30). This has been published intranslation by the Liaison Office of the Technical Information Center ofWright-Patterson Air Force Base as the Index of Abbreviated and Full Titlesof Scientific and Technical Periodical Literature and appeared in 1959, distributedby the Office of Technical Services, U. S. Department of Commerce (31)."The authors have taken into consideration the recommendations receivedfrom the International Federation of National Associations on Standardiza-tion, particularly its International Code of Abbreviations for Titles of PeriodicalPublications." While the original contained entries on 12,250 periodicals fromall countries in several alphabets, the translation covers only the 1,804 Rus-sian titles and their abbreviations of the original. It gives specific rules forthe treatment of Russian adjectives derived from proper nouns, names of theSoviet Republics, and use of the name of the country (rather than the city)to distinguish between similar titles. The rules on capitalization, hyphena-tion, plurals, and particles are given.

Fisher's Abbreviations of Russian Scientific Serial Publications is a list of ab-breviations "compiled from bibliographies in many Russian technicaljournals and in the various abstract publications" (32). The 67 entries here,as might be expected, do not show a great degree of correspondence with theaforementioned Academy of Sciences Ukazatel'. The abbreviations in theFisher list are briefer than the Ukazatel': for example, G Zh versus Gornyy zh.

International

Having covered in cursory fashion the endeavors within a few nationstoward systematization of abbreviations, we can turn to a review of inter-national activity. Using the 1927 edition of World List of Scientific Periodicalsand the German system as a base, the League of Nations' InternationalInstitute of Intellectual Co-operation in 1930 published its Code international

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d'abre'viations des titres de pe'riodiques (33), supplemented in 1932 by a classifiedlist of words most frequently appearing in periodical titles (34).

In 1937 Technical Committee 46 of the International Federation of theNational Standards Associations (ISA) was set up to deal with documentationstandards. The following year it issued as its ISA Bulletin Number 23 thepreviously mentioned code adopted virtually without change. At laterplenary sessions of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO),the successor to ISA as the official international co-ordinator of the variousnational activities toward standardization, draft recommendations for peri-odical titles were discussed. Consideration by the various national bodies atsessions at The Hague in 1948, 1950, and 1952, in Ascona in 1950, in Romein 1951, in Copenhagen in 1952, and in Paris in 1953 resulted in the adop-tion at Geneva in 1953 of ISO Recommendation R4, International Code forthe Abbreviation of Titles of Periodicals (35).

International interest in standardized journal abbreviations in recent yearshas been continued under UNESCO sponsorship. The meeting of its Co-ordinating Committee on Abstracting and Indexing in the Medical andBiological Sciences in April 1948 listed among its agenda a discussion of alist of abbreviations used in bibliographical references and in the texts ofabstracts (36). Dr. I. Leitch read a paper, "The Arrangement of Biblio-graphical Information in Abstracting Journals," at the Co-ordinating Com-mittee's meeting in June 1949, recognizing the usefulness of a standard forabbreviation of journal titles and, while openminded, preferring the forth-coming World List for its wider coverage (37). Eileen R. Cunningham, inreporting at the same session on "The Librarian's Preferences RegardingAbstracting Services," noted suggestions for the co-operation of the leadingabstracting services for the publication of lists of abbreviations under theirjoint sponsorship (38).

As finally adopted by the Interim Co-ordinating Committee in Medicaland Biological Abstracting at a 1949 Paris conference, the initial resolutionread: "The Committee asks that UNESCO publish a List of Medical andBiological Journals with appropriate abbreviations" (39).

In 1953, UNESCO and the World Health Organization jointly publishedWorld Medical Periodicals, a compilation of titles of medical and biologicaljournals and their abbreviations. The list, compiled by Leslie T. Morton ofthe British Medical Association, is based on the abbreviations of the WorldList of Scientific Periodicals. It includes, in addition to medical and biologicalperiodicals, journals from the fields of pharmacy, dentistry, and veterinarymedicine, listing over 3,900 titles (40). The second edition appeared in 1957,published by the World Medical Association by agreement with UNESCOand WHO, and was again compiled by Mr. Morton. Its scope is the sameas the first edition; its coverage is considerably enlarged to over 4,800 titles.

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The abbreviation system is that of the World List, modified by ISO/R4, therules of which its preface reproduces (41).*The UNESCO agenda for this decade includes work toward greater uni-

formity of journal title abbreviations in avowed co-operation with the In-ternational Organization for Standardization, the World List of ScientificPeriodicals, and other important bodies. Envisioned is the publication of a listof abbreviations supported by the major scientific indexing and abstractingservices as the unified product of all.

II

DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED SYSTEMSThe following exposition is a cursory analysis of several systems of journal

title abbreviations. The interested student should also refer to the studypublished by B. F. Courtright in 1950 (42).

Index-Catalogue

When, in 1880, John Shaw Billings published the first volume of theIndex-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office, his letter of trans-mittal to Surgeon General Barnes touched upon the theory of abbreviations:

Some of the abbreviations of names of places, especially in the United States, mighthave been still further shortened if the Catalogue had been intended for use only in thiscountry. But an analysis, by subjects, of so large a collection of medical periodicals is,necessarily, useful in St. Petersburg, for example, as well as in Washington, its measure ofutility in any locality being the extent of the collection of medical periodical literaturetherein. Intelligibility to foreigners, therefore, has been regarded as a quality essential tothe abbreviations in question (43).

In the formal "Explanations" preceding the list of journal titles and theirabbreviations he laid down equally cogent and concise rules:

The abbreviations are prepared as far as possible in accordance with the followingprinciples:

1. To follow the exact order of the words of the title.2. To make them as brief as is consistent with clearness to those who are familiar with

medical literature.3. To follow strictly the orthographical usages of each language. This disposes of the

question of capitalization.4. To attain uniformity.Some exceptions to this last rule have been found expedient. An abbreviation which

is quite intelligible in the body of a title is not always suitable as the first word, and the

*Editor's Note: In the Third Edition, 1961, of World Medical Periodicals, which waspublished after this article was submitted for publication, the basic theory and form ofabbreviation remain substantially unchanged. The Third Edition is No. 41a in the Refer-ences.

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context may make an abbreviation sufficiently clear in a long title which in a short onewould appear obscure. The convenience of the reader is regarded as of more importancethan a rigid adherence to uniformity. The following minor details, with the list of single-letter abbreviations, will assist in the comprehension of the scheme:

The article with which a title commences is invariably omitted.Prepositions as well as articles are omitted in English titles, but in other languages their

entire elision would lead to obscurity, and is not warranted by usage.The place of publication is not added when it forms an integral part of the title; in such

cases it is given without abbreviation, except in instances of constant recurrence, as London,Paris, Berlin, etc., which are condensed into Lond., Par., Berl., etc., on all occasions. Noris it added to the titles of Transactions or Journals the places of publication of which havebeen changed from time to time, as the references in each instance furnish the locality.

The reader seeking explanation of an abbreviated title will find it under its first word(article excluded) in its alphabetical place in the list, but cross-references have beenadded when, as in the case of Societies, the first word of the title may not be sufficientlydistinctive (44).

By 1937, although the theory of abbreviation explained in earlier volumeswas unchanged, the details of form were amplified in the "Synopsis of Style"prefacing Series 4, Volume 2. The rules given here are very detailed andonly the highlights are given in the following condensation.Words are shortened by abbreviation, contraction, or omission, i.e., Rio

for Rio de Janeiro. Single-word titles are not abbreviated, nor are short titlesof two or three words "in unusual relation to each other as in Animal Defender,or Contact Point," nor titles in Asiatic languages unless bearing an interna-tional title. Conjunctions are in general disregarded. Articles and preposi-tions are omitted. The second half of long titles is disregarded if it containswords of a subject related to the first part of the title. The place of publicationis in the abbreviation to show the country of origin and the language of thejournal and to differentiate between similar titles or abbreviations. All wordsof English titles are capitalized; other capitalization follows the practice ofthe country. Hyphens are ignored in compound words. German compoundwords, hyphenated or nonhyphenated, are abbreviated element-by-elementindependently and joined without a hyphen (Geschlkr. for Geschlechtskrank-heiten). The list of abbreviated and contracted words contains 1,023 items.

Quarterly Cumulative Index MedicasThe Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus published no set of rules regarding

its method of abbreviating journal titles. Particles appear sometimes inforeign language titles, and sometimes they are omitted. The ampersand isretained as the connective in English language titles and et and u. are re-tained for French and German, respectively. Contractions do not appear.The place of publication was not given originally for those titles not revealingthe country of origin, but later (1927 and after) the place of publication oc-casionally appeared, as in Med. Rev., Bergen for Medicinsk Revue; and yet,

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Die neue Generation, published in Berlin, was cited as merely N. Generation.By the time QCIM ceased publication in 1956 journals with similar titleswere distinguished by the place of publication, thus: J. Physiol. and J.physiol., Paris; J. Urol. and J. urol., Paris. These examples demonstrate alsothe policy on capitalization.

Chemical Abstracts

Chemical Abstracts serves as a model for the journals of the American In-stitute of Physics and the American Institute of Biological Sciences as wellas for the publications of the American Chemical Society, Its rules for formu-lation of abbreviations are given in its "List of Periodicals Abstracted," thelatest full edition of which appeared in 1956. In the same edition it gives alist of 713 words comprising its "Journal Title Word Abbreviations."

Prepositions and conjunctions are omitted except where required to iden-tify or differentiate journals with similar titles. Abbreviations (except for thefamiliar generic words) are long enough only to permit recognition of theword. Only words in the principal technical languages tend to be abbreviated(exceptions are made for generic words in less familiar languages). Single-word titles are not abbreviated. Exceptions to the rules are made when ob-viously required; distinction is made, for instance, between J. Chem. Phys.and J. Chem. and Phys. Capitalization follows the practice of the vernacular.The place of publication is used in parentheses to distinguish similar titlesor similar abbreviations. It recognizes the use of "colloquial" abbreviationsin the chemical field, but cautions that "elsewhere the longer abbreviationis probably desirable."

Periodica Medica

Periodica Medica follows a stated middle course. Articles and prepositionsare usually omitted, but conjunctions are inconsistently retained. Single-word titles are not abbreviated. In titles beginning with a proper name thegiven names are omitted. The place of publication is added to the abbrevia-tion when the title is in Latin, when the language is not clearly discerniblefrom the abbreviation, when the language of the abbreviation is not that ofthe official tongue of the country, and when it is necessary to distinguishbetween journals of similar title. Abbreviation is by truncation or contraction(tbc., fri., csl., dtsch.). Hyphens are retained in compound words accordingto the national practice; components of compound words in German, how-ever, are abbreviated as if the words are separate, and the hyphen is omitted.

World List

The World List of Scientific Periodicals shows only minor changes in its threeeditions. Articles and prepositions are usually omitted. While all words in

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English titles were capitalized in the first edition, in the second and thirdonly nouns and proper adjectives were capitalized in English; rules for theother languages called for capitalized nouns, lower-case adjectives. Conjunc-tions were omitted except between two nouns connected by and, and betweenbroken compounds. Plurals are not indicated. Cognate words in all languagesare reduced when possible to the same form. Contractions are permitted.Place of publication is omitted except to distinguish between similar titlesor when the language of the original is not discernible from the abbreviation.In Germanic and Scandinavian languages compound nouns are abbreviatedas if separate, with each element of the compound capitalized; compoundadjectives are abbreviated as if separate, but are separated by a hyphen.The first edition gave a list of generic abbreviations for German only; thesecond and third editions included other languages. The first edition alsogave a list of 67 abbreviations for place names, but this was omitted fromthe second and third editions.World Medical Periodicals

The system used by World Medical Periodicals is for all practical purposesthe system specified by ISO/R4, although there are some differences andinconsistencies between the two. The system is, of course, close to that of theWorld List, but again there are differences, as, for example, the fact thatISO/R4 indicates plurals, while World List does not, and ISO/R4 gives thename in full when a title begins with a personal name, while World List usesonly the family name.The ISO/R4 rules are here given in full:

INTERNATIONAL CODE FOR THE ABBREVIATION OF TITLES OF PERIODICALS

1. The rules in these recommendations are to be regarded as indicating the utmost limitspermitted for abbreviations; these rules may be modified to suit national purposeswithin those limits.

2. As a general rule titles of periodicals are not abbreviated beyond a point which allowsthe identification both of the title and the language. The order of the words, whenabbreviated, is never varied.

3. As a general rule the abridged form retains all words other than articles, conjunc-tions, prepositions and the like, which are usually omitted.

The following are exceptions to the general rule:a) The article, conjunction, preposition or combination of these are retained if form-

ing part (other than the initial word) of a title consisting of only two other words,neither of which is a generic name.

b) The conjunction is retained between two compound words of a title, the last partof which is common to and shared by both.

c) In exceptionally long titles, in addition to articles, conjunctions and prepositions,some of the other less important words are omitted. When the conjunction is pre-served, "und" is abbreviated as "u." and "och" as "o."; "and" is not abbreviated.In languages in which the definite article begins with the letter d, the abbreviation"d." is used in all cases.

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d) When the language of the title is not clearly shown by the abbreviated form, thefirst conjunction, preposition or article is retained.

4. The normal method of abbreviation is by omitting the last letters (at least two) of thethe word, the letters omitted being replaced by a full stop.

5. Nouns are spelt with a capital, adjectives with a small initial letter. Names of institu-tions are considered as proper nouns and begin with a capital.

6. Plurals are indicated only when necessary. This is done by adding a hyphen and thelast letter of the plural form to the abbreviation of the singular (omitting the full stop).

EXAMPLE: Jahrbuch-Jb. (singular)Jahrbiicher-Jb-r (plural)

7. Cognate words, having the same meaning in different languages, are reduced to thesame form when the orthography permits (cf. article 1).

8. Titles transliterated into the Roman alphabet according to an internationally ac-cepted code are also abbreviated in accordance with the above rules.

9. Only titles consisting of more than one simple word, exclusive of article, are abbrevi-ated.

10. In compound words each part is abbreviated as if it stood alone, the different partsbeing connected by a hyphen.

EXAMPLE: Finska Likaresillskapets HandlingarFinska Lak.-Sdllsk. Handl-r

I1. Where confusion might arise, the place (or if necessary the country) of publication isto be indicated within brackets after the title, abbreviated or not, for instance:a) when the abbreviation according to the foregoing rules fails to indicate the lan-

uage;b) when the title is in a language other than that or those of the country in which the

periodical is published and the title does not reveal the country;c) when two or more periodicals have the same title or the same correctly abbreviated

title.12. When the title of a periodical begins with the name of a person, the name as given on

the title page is kept in full and the rest of the title is abridged according to the rules.The family name plus a generic name will not suffice; it is necessary also to indicatethe rest of the title (abbreviated).

EXAMPLE 1: Wilhelm Roux' Archiv fur EntwicklungsmechanikCorrect: Wilhelm Roux' Arch. Entwickl.-Mech.Incorrect: Roux' Arch.

EXAMPLE 2: Aliemeyers Zeitschriftfiir Internationales RechtCorrect: Niemeyers Z. int. RechtIncorrect: ANiemeyers Z.

Index Medicus

The general principles underlying the new Index Medicus system, numberedto correspond with ISO/R4 rules, are now presented:

INDEX MEDICUS RULES FOR THE ABBREVIATION OF TITLES OF PERIODICALS

1. The rules in these recommendations are to be regarded as indicating the utmostlimits permitted for abbreviations.

2. Titles of periodicals are not abbreviated beyond a point which allows the identifica-tion of the title. The order of the words, when abbreviated, is never varied.

3. As a general rule the abridged form retains all words other than articles, conjunc-tions, prepositions and the like, which are usually omitted.

324


The following are exceptions to the general rule:a) When the particle is necessary, not primarily as a means of identifying the journal

but more importantly as an integral part of the intended sense of the title, theparticle will be retained.EXAMPLE: Pro Medico Pro Med

M & B Pharmaceutical Bulletin M&B Pharm Bullb) When the particle is an integral part of the name of a country or other place name

or of a corporate entry, the particle will be retained.EXAMPLE: Archivos del Colegio medico de El Salvador

Arch Col Med El SalvadorArchivio De Vecchi per l'anatomia patologica e la medicina clinicaArch De Vecchi Anat Pat

4. The normal method of abbreviation is by omitting the last letters of the word. Nopunctuation mark, but rather a single space, is used between elements of the abbreviation.

5. The first letter of each word of the abbreviation is capitalized regardless of syntax.6. Plurals are not indicated.7. Cognate words, having the same meaning in different languages, are retained in

their original form.8. Titles transliterated into the Roman alphabet are also abbreviated in accordance

with the above rules.9. Only titles consisting of more than one word, exclusive of article, are abbreviated.

10. In compound words only the final part of the compound is abbreviated.11. Where confusion might arise, the place (or if necessary the country) of publication

is to be indicated within parentheses after the title, abbreviated or not, for instance:a) to distinguish titles in English from non-English titles;b) to distinguish between periodicals having the same title or the same correctly ab-

breviated title;c) to anticipate and avoid possible conflict with journals created in the future with

similar titles within the same country, language, or specialty;d) after abbreviations containing the words Acta and Folia unless the title contains a

geographic designation.12. When the title of a periodical includes the name of a person, only the family name

is given, in uninflected form, and the rest of the title is abridged according to the rules;but when the name comes at the beginning of a title and at the same time is the nameof a corporate body (society or institution), the names, both personal and family, aregiven.EXAMPLE 1. Albrecht von Graefes Archivfiir Ophthalmologie

Graefe Arch Ophthal2. Annali dell'Istituto Carlo Forlanini

Ann Ist Forlaninibut

3. Henry Ford Hospital Medical BulletinHenry Ford Hosp Med Bull

III

THE INDEX MEDICUS SYSTEM

In the National Library of Medicine rules for the abbreviation of journaltitles have evolved from the 1880 prototype of John Shaw Billings. Through

325


the final volume of NLM's Current List of Medical Literature, published in 1959,the old Index-Catalogue style was followed.

In 1960 NLM began publication of the new series of the Index Medicus,an amalgamation, as it were, of the old Current List and Quarterly CumulativeIndex Medicus. These superseded publications used two different systems oftitle abbreviations; in the new publication there was the opportunity toeliminate two conflicting systems in favor of a new one more closely adherentto "international standards," although we have seen that those standardsare not clear-cut and are far from being universally accepted. In establishingthe system for the Index Medicus,* the National Library of Medicine con-scientiously took as a firm base the system embodied in World MedicalPeriodicals and its corollary ISO/R4. NLM was much aware of its obligationto refrain from adding yet another new system to the pot, and thus anothercrime to the calendar.

In point of fact, two-thirds of the abbreviations in the Index Medicus sys-tem are identical with those in the World Medical Periodicals system, if oneexcepts the differences of capitalization and punctuation. Where the dif-ferences between the two systems occur, they are attributable to three majorreasons.

1. Limitations and requirements of machine methods. A major constraint is in-troduced by the fact that the Index Medicus is produced by methods whichmake the use of diacritical marks, for instance, an especially difficult problem.(See NLAM Index Mechanization Project (45).) More importantly, the IndexMedicus will eventually be composed by a digital computer (circa 1964).When this is accomplished, internal punctuation of the abbreviation, as byhyphens and periods, will become a severe handicap; the computer, searchingfor "end of phrase" indications, easily gets into trouble. The matter of cap-italization of each element, while loosely allied to the foregoing arguments,is better justified apart from mechanical consideration. Of the multiplesystems of abbreviation now in use, some capitalize all nouns, some capi-talize all words in English. Some lower-case all adjectives, while some exceptEnglish adjectives derived from names. The CNRS and Karger systemslower-case all adjectives regardless of derivation: thus, J. amer. med. Ass.,and J. mar. biol. Ass. unit. Kingd. In some variants the argument is that thepractice helps establish the language of the original. In any system thefact of the matter is that in final proofreading of a manuscript, one is alwaysassailed by terrible doubts solely on the grounds of capitalization, and one's

* The 1962 List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus contains some abbreviations whichdiffer slightly from the application of the rules here stated, in such matters as treatment ofgiven names and treatment of geographical terms in and out of parentheses. The forth-coming 1963 List, to be published this fall, will do away with conflict between rule andpractice. Meanwhile, the diligent student may find the search for discrepancies instructiveand sobering.

326


only recourse is to go laboriously to published lists for "authoritative"decision. In practice, in all countries, words in a title are usually printed allin capitals; the concern with these, the making of subtle distinctions, thevariations from place to place, do not seem warranted.

2. Transliteration systems. The National Library of Medicine uses Libraryof Congress rules for transliterating the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets, amodified Hepburn romanization for Japanese, and the Wade-Giles romani-zation for Chinese.

3. Correction of WMP inconsistencies and incongruities. One of the basic princi-ples in the World Medical Periodicals system unacceptable to Index Medicus isabbreviation by contraction as well as by truncation. We do not feel thatthe WMP form Cy is patently City (as in J. Oslo Cy Hosp.), that Tms is clearlyTimes, or that Bgham is suitable for Birmingham. In the Index Medicus systemall words are abbreviated by dropping letters at the end of the word. Theonly exception to the rule forbidding contractions relates to a few Germancompounds indicating frequency of publication (e.g., Mschr, Wschr) andsimilarly the commonly cited Zbl.The Index Medicus system tries to avoid such inconsistencies as S. Carol.

for South Carolina, but N. C. for North Carolina; or the use of Sth. for southern,but North. for northern; or the omission of the El in El Salvador in a titlesuch as Sanid. Salvador (Sanidad en El Salvador) but its inclusion in Arch. Col.med. El Salvador (for Archivos del Colegio me'dico de El Salvador).The differences between World Medical Periodicals (WMP) and Index Medi-

cus (IM) practice are shown in the following comparison.In August 1961 there were 1,766 medical periodical titles covered in IM,

excluding medical project report titles. Of the 1,766 titles, 346 do not appearin WMP, and 18 have undergone title changes since the appearance ofWMP; these 365 titles were dropped from further consideration, leaving1,402 periodical titles for comparison of WMP and IM practice.Of these 1,402 titles, 904 abbreviations (65 per cent) are identical, save

for the presence of accents, periods, capitalization, or spacing. There isconsiderable deviation in 315 abbreviations (22 per cent) and there areminor deviations in 183 abbreviations (13 per cent). These 183 minordeviations are:

a) differences in formation of compound words 62b) deviation of geographical name in parentheses 36c) difference in bracketed material 27d) omission of conjunction by IM 27e) difference in transliteration system 13f) use of contractions by WMP 12g) use of prepositions by WMP 3h) use of article or other particles by WMP 3

327


Examples of each of these minor deviations are:a) WMP: Acta gastro-ent. belg.

IM: Acta Gastroent Belgb) WMP: An. Med. Cir. (Barcelona)

IM: An Med Cir (Barc)c) WMP: GI. srpske Akad. Nauka, Od. med. Nauka

IM: Glas Srpske Akad Nauk [Med]WMP: Excerpta med. (Amst.), Sect. XVIM: Excerpta Med [XV]

d) WMP: Antibiot. et Chemother. (Basel)IM: Antibiot Chemother (Basel)

e) WMP BiohimiaIM: Biokhimiia

f) WMP: Amer. J. publ. HlthIM: Amer J Public Health

g) WMP: Lutte c. CancerIM: Lutte Cancer

h) WMP: Ther. d. Gegenw.IM: Ther Gegenw

Examples of the 315 abbreviations showing "considerable deviation" arelisted here, with commentary:i) WMP: J. Iowa St. med. Soc.

IM: J Iowa Med Socfor Journal of the Iowa State Medical Society

butWMP: J. Mich. med. Soc.IM: J Mich Med Socfor Journal of the Michigan State Medical Society

Comment: Of 15 state medical journal titles in which the word "state"appears, WMP uses St. in the abbreviation for 7, but omits itfrom the abbreviation for 8. IM consistently omits it.

j) WMP: Penn. med. J.Stud. Dep. Path. Pa Univ.

Comment: Penn., Pa. and even Pennsylvania appear in abbreviations. IM,on the contrary, has tried to be consistent in the abbreviation ofthe names of states; the only variations are those allowed whenthe state name is the initial word rather than an internal word,as: New York J Med, but J NY Med Coll.

k) WMP: Igiene mod.butNuovi Ann. Ig.

Comment: IM has tried to be consistent in its use of the same abbreviationfor base words and all derivatives.

328


1) WMP: Arch. Inst. bras. Tuberc. for Arquivos do IBITBoston med. Quart. for BMQbutDDZ for DDZ-Das Deutsche Zahnarzteblatt

Comment: In its treatment of acronyms, IM uses the form as it appears inthe journal title.

m) WMP: Arch. for Arq.Comment: This is a basic deviation in policy from WMP and ultimately

ISO/R4, article 7, which states that "cognate words, having thesame meaning in different languages, are reduced to the sameform when the orthography permits." IM feels that no purposeis served in identifying a journal by respelling words ad libitum.

n) WMP: Ann. Ist. ForlaninibutMem. Inst. Osw. CruzMem. Inst. biol. E. Dias

Comment: IM consistently omits the initials of proper names in title ab-breviations.

o) WMP: Bull. Johns Hopk. Hosp.butSudhoffs Arch Gesch. Med.

Comment: IM consistently gives proper names in full.p) WMP: Gesnerus (Aarau)

butJanus

Comment: IM tries to be consistent in applying its rules for use of place ofpublication; WMP appears to be inconsistent in its applicationof ISO/R4 article on this matter.

IV

SIX SYSTEMS COMPARED

The following examples illustrate the differences in the abbreviation oftitles in six systems. The titles selected demonstrate only a few of the variousprinciples of concern to abbreviation theory in the systems of ChemicalAbstracts (CA), Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus (QCIM), World List ofScientifw Periodicals (WLSP), World Medical Periodicals (WMP), Index-Cata-logue (IC), and Index Medicus (IM).

Length of tideAnnals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology (Saint Louis)

CA: Ann. Otol. Rhinol. & Laryngol.QCIM: Ann. Otol. Rhin. & Laryng.

329


WLSP: Ann. Otol., etc., St LouisWMP: Ann. Otol. (St. Louis)IC: Ann. Otol. Rhinol.IM: Ann Otol

Bulletin of the New York Medical College, Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospitals(this has been recently changed to Journal of New York Medical College,Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospitals)CA: Bull. N. Y. Med. Coll. Flower and Fifth Ave. Hosp.QCIM: Bull. New York M. Coll.WLSP: Bull. N. Y. med. Coll.WMP: Bull. N. Y. med. Coll.IC: Bull. N. York M. Coll.IM: Bull NY Med Coll

Zentralblatt fur allgemeine Pathologie und pathologische AnatomieCA: Zentr. allgem. Pathol. u. pathol. Anat.QCIM: Zentralbl. allg. Path.WLSP: Zbl. allg. Path. path. Anat.WMP: Zbl. allg. Path. path. Anat.IC: Zbl. allg. Path.IM: Zbl Allg Path

Capitalization of corporate names

Bulletins et me'moires de la Societe' medicale des h6pitaux de ParisCA: Bull. me'm. soc. me'd. h6p. ParisQCIM: Bull. et me'm. Soc. me'd. h6p. ParisWLSP: Bull. Soc. me'd. H6p. ParisWMP: Bull. Soc. med. H6p. ParisIC: Bull. Soc. me'd. h6p. ParisIM: Bull Soc Med Hop Paris

Arquivos de Faculdade de higiene e sau'de puiblica da Universidade de Sao PauloCA: Arquiv. fac. hig. e sau'de pu'blica univ. Sdo PauloQCIM: Arq. Fac. hig. e sau'de pu'b.WLSP:WMP: Arch. Fac. Hig. S. PauloIC:IM: Arq Fac Hig S Paulo

Place of publication

Acta Neurovegetativa (Wien)CA: Acta Neuroveget. (Vienna)QCIM: Acta neuroveg.WLSP: Acta Neuroveg.WMP: Acta neuroveg. (Wien)

330


IC:IM: Acta Neuroveg (Wien)

Vocabulary

Archives internationales de pharmacodynamie et de the'rapieCA: Arch. intern. pharmacodynamieQCIM: Arch. internat. pharmacodyn.WLSP: Arch. int. Pharmacodyn.WMP: Arch. int. Pharmacodyn.IC: Arch. internat. pharm. dyn., Par.IM: Arch Int Pharmacodyn

Conjunctions

Cuore e circolazioneCA: Cuore e circolazioneQCIM: Cuore e circolaz.WLSP: Cuore e Circul. [sic]WMP: Cuore e Circol.IC: Cuore & circol.IM: Cuore Circ

Compounds

Zeitschriftfur Anatomie und EntwicklungsgeschichteCA: Z. Anat. EntwicklungsgeschichteQCIM: Ztschr. Anat.WLSP: Z. Anat. EntwGesch.WMP: Z. Anat. Entwickl.-Gesch.IC: Zschr. Anat. Entw.IM: Z Anat Entwicklungsgesch

Proper names

Albrecht von Graefes Archivffur OphthalmologieCA: Arch. ophthalmol., Graefe'sQCIM: von Graefes Arch. Ophth.WLSP: v. Graefes Arch. Ophthal.WMP: Albrecht v. Graefes Arch. Ophthal.IC: Arch. Ophth., Berl.IM: Graefe Arch Ophthal

State medical journalsJournal of the Indiana State Medical Association

CA: J. Indiana State Med. Assoc.QCIM: J. Indiana M. A.

331


WLSP:WMP:IC:IM:

Journal of theCA:QCIM:WLSP:WMP:IC:IM:

Journal of theCA:QCIM:WLSP:WMP:IC:IM:

J. Ind. med. Ass.J. Indiana med. Ass.J. Indiana M. Ass.J Indiana Med Ass

Oklahoma State Medical AssociationJ. Oklahoma State Med. Assoc.J. Oklahoma M. A.J. Okla. med. Ass.J. Okla. St. med. Ass.J. Oklahoma M. Ass.J Okla Med Ass

Medical Association of the State of AlabamaJ. Med. Assoc. State AlabamaJ. M. A. AlabamaJ. med. Ass. Ala.J. med. Ass. AlaJ. M. Ass. AlabamaJ Med Ass Alabama

Selective subdivisions

Zentralblatt fur Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, Infektionskrankheiten und Hy-giene. Erste Abteilung: OriginaleCA: Zentr. Bakteriol. Parasitenk. Abt. I. Orig.QCIM: Zentralbl. Bakt.WLSP: Zbl. Bakt., Abt. 1WMP: Zbl. Bakt., I. Abt. Orig.IC: Zbl. Bakt.IM: Zbl Bakt [Orig]

Table I shows a comparison of several generic terms and a few other com-mon words as abbreviated by the major abbreviation systems.

Table II summarizes the characteristics of the six systems along variousaxes. Most of the items are illustrated in the previously cited sample titles.On the basis of the samples used and others which could have been chosen

one can see similarities between any two systems on any given item. If thesystems were arranged on a spectrum of similarity, as it were, the range ingeneral would be thus:

332

CA QCIr,M IC im WMP WLSP

uCZQ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ E2;

E Q~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CUY . =~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~'

E ¢ < U : c) c > E = > > o O < Xe EX,0 0C13~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

E )> HE|3 D14 r.0w

t) 60Cs0

CZ¢a 's.

3E¢¢ $ , O O > E = E S~~~~~~~O E E

00

0 'o4.0 (L) 0 CZ0

0 ta .002 'n 4-1

0 4) CIS -4 1-,.z O O AC'41

333ABBREVIATIONS FOR MEDICAL JOURNAL TITLES

S-44u --4

4E-4 E--l .'- N N

0-4

w04A

E-4

19C)4

ei

4-)V. 1-4

0 4-icis

4) 4-)S-4 E , V E .o -W4--v $, 0 0 11:1 U2 4 xV CA P4 4-11 4--W m C) CZ >, E r.

v u .0 0, C's--!. --!. < u r:1 0 0 0 "'. .. .. 0 0 0.

blo0

4 1-4 $.4

rA 0.-4 0W L-J

Cd U CZ

;.4 rA 4-J

o o

0>0

4O bD0 0

ad o:E E n.b:=E=A o A>< U:OO > OO H¢N


TABLE II

CHARACTERISTICS CA QCIM WLSP WMP IC IM

Punctuation usedAccents and other dia-

critical marks usedCapitalizationNouns: EnglishNouns: Foreign'Adj: English2Adj: Foreign

Articles usedConjunctions usedAmpersand used

Particles usedContractions usedSingle-word titles spelled

in fullPersonal namesAbbreviationsFull name

Hyphens retainedCompound words abbre-

viated separatelyPlace of publicationState in state medical

journalsState names abbreviatedGeographical names ab-

breviatedNounsAdjectives

++

±none+

nonenone

+

limited++

none++

none

++

none

+nonenone

+limitedlimited+

none

+

none

nonelimited+

limited

+

variesvaries

+

in ( ) out of ( ) out of ( )included omitted irreg

varies

++

none

none+

varies

nonelimited

+

nonelimited+

+

variesvaries

+

in ( )irreg

varies

nonenone

nonelimited+

limited

+

nonevariesnone+

nonenone

nonenonenonenone

limited

+

nonevariesnonenone

out of () in ( )omitted omitted

none

none+

varies

+

1. German nouns always capitalized2. Adjectives from proper nouns always capitalized

Index-Catalogue lies between Quarterly Cumulative and Index Medicus but iscloser to the latter. Index Medicus, on the other hand, lies halfway betweenIndex-Catalogue, its parent, and World Medical Periodicals. World MedicalPeriodicals is of course very close to its parent World List.

CONCLUSION

In the matter of abbreviating journal titles, Dr. John F. Fulton offers thisoverly generous and nondefinitive dictum: ". . . in the last analysis it doesnot matter whether you follow any one of these lists provided you are your-self consistent and have thought sufficiently deep into the matter to makereasonable men give your preferences serious consideration" (46). TheNational Library of Medicine, in its code of rules delineated in the Appendix,

334


has attempted to be consistent, has indeed thought deep into the matter,and can only hope that reasonable men will give these preferences seriousconsideration. There can be no doubt that the last word has not been said;there should be no doubt, either, that the National Library of Medicine willcontinue to be willing to consider the preferences of others.We would add this note. An international standard requires a set of rules.

It also requires an authoritative list. An international indexing periodicalsuch as Index Medicus must of necessity deal with new journal titles as theyappear, before they are incorporated into any list. For its own control pur-poses the Index Medicus must publish revised lists of titles and abbreviationsat least annually. A viable international standard would have a better op-portunity of remaining viable if it were exemplified in such recurring,updated lists. While some change is inevitable, a situation in which standardschange every few years is not standardization, but chaos. We believe thatthe elimination of the old Index-Catalogue and Quarterly Cumulative IndexMedicus systems in favor of the new Index Medicus system brings Amelicanpractice in medical bibliography a great deal closer to the "internationalstandard," insofar as there is an international standard. If the internationalstandard is to be further revised, as seems likely, we would welcome theattention of the revision plenum to the principles here set forth.

REFERENCES

1. MCCASLAND, G. E. A concise form for scientific literature citations. Science 120:150-152, July 23, 1954.

2. BISHOP, C. An integrated approach to the documentation problem. Amer. Docum. 4:54-65, Spring (April) 1953.

3. REID, J. B. Chronological sigils. Amer. Docum. 5: 26-28, Jan. 1954.4. ODEND'HAL, G. Un code d'abreviations pour bibliographes. Primo Congresso Mon-

diale delle Biblioteche e di Bibliografia, Roma-Venezia, 15-30 giugno 1929. Vol. 2,Memorie e comunicazioni [1]. Roma, 1931. p. 289-291.

5. PLACE, F. Abbreviation: more or less. BULLETIN 21: 111-113, July 1932.6. KENT, F. L. Some aspects of international standardization in library work. Libr.

World 51: 243-245, June 1949.7. BRODE, W. R. Journal abbreviations. Phys. Today 4: 4-5, Aug. 1951.8. SHEPPARD, R. L. Contractions for titles of periodicals. Nature 122: 277-278, Aug. 25,

1928.9. LORPHAVRE, G. Les travaux de la Commission 46 de 1' "International Standardisa-

tion Organisation" concernant la normalisation en matiere de documentation.Cah. Docum. 2: 90-96, Oct. 1948.

10. ARTELT, W. The problem of abbreviating the titles of medical periodicals. BULLETIN43: 52-57, Jan. 1955.

11. U. S. Army Medical Library. Synopsis of style with a list of abbreviations for serialpublications. In Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office.Ser. 4, Vol. 2, 1937. p. [1]-[9].

12. American Chemical Society. 1960 Supplement to the List of Periodicals Abstractedby Chemical Abstracts (1956 edition). Columbus, Ohio, 1960. p. I J.

335

336 FRANK B. ROGERS AND THELMA CHAREN

13. Conference of Biological Editors. Committee on Form and Style. Style Manual forBiological Journals. Washington, American Institute of Biological Sciences, 1960.p. 61.

14. WEINBERGER, B. W. Proper abbreviations for dental journals. BULLETIN 24: 92-99,Sept. 1935.

15. -. Code of abbreviations for dental journals. Dent. Survey 12: 314-319, Aug. 1936.16. A World List of Scientific Periodicals Published in the Years 1900-1933. 2d ed. Lon-

don, Oxford University Press, 1934. p. x.17. Biological Council. A List of Abbreviations of Titles of Biological Journals Selected,

by Permission, from the World List of Scientific Periodicals. London, 1949. p. [iv].18. SCHWALBE, J. Einheitliche Abkiurzung der Titel medizinischer Zeitschriften und

Werke in Quellenangaben. Deutsch. Med. Wschr. 40: 28-30, Jan. 1, 1914.19. Periodica Medica: Titelabkiurzungen medizinischer Zeitschriften. 4. Aufl. Stuttgart,

Georg Thieme Verlag, 1952. p. iv.20. RUST, WERNER. Verzeichnis von unklaren Titelkuirzungen deutscher und auslan-

discher Zeitschriften. Leipzig, Otto Harrassowitz, 1927. 142 p.21. PRINZHORN, F. Normung im Bibliotheks-, Buch- und Zeitschriftenwesen. Primo Con-

gresso Mondiale delle Biblioteche e di Bibliografia, Roma-Venezia, 15-30 giugno1929. Vol. 2, Memorie e comunicazioni [1]. Roma, 1931. p. 196-208.

22. WVo sind Welche? Medizinische Zeitschriften in der DDR; Stand vom 1. Marz 1960.Deutsche Staatsbibliothek-Berlin. Zeitschriften-Bestandsverzeichniss 7. Berlin, 1960.252 p.

23. RICHET, C. Dictionnaire de physiologie. Paris, 1897. Vol. 2, p. 101.24. Recommandations aux auteurs. J. Physiol. (Par) 39: [1-6] 1946/47.25. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Bulletin analytique: Liste des periodi-

ques regus au C.N.R.S. et de leurs abreviations. Paris, 1948. 72 p.26. L'Abreviation des titres de periodiques. Cah. Docum. 2: 97-105, Oct. 1948.27. KARGER (S.), A.G., Basel. Kurze Anleitung zur Abfassung von Manuskript und Litera-

turverzeichnis mit einer Liste der abgekusrzten Zeitschriftentitel der meist zitiertenmedizinischen Periodica. Basel, 1958. 17 p.

28. -. Rules for the Preparation of Manuscripts and Bibliographies with a List of Ab-breviations of Titles of Current Medical Periodicals. Basel, 1958. 17 p.

29. DRACHMANN, A. G. The Danish standard for abbreviation of titles of periodicals: DS909. Libri 6: 247-254, 1956.

30. Akademiia Nauk SSSR. Institut Nauchnoi Informatsii. Ukazatel' Sokrashchennykh iPolnykh Nazvanii Nauchnoi i Tekhnicheskoi Literatury. Moskva, 1957. 237 p.

31. -. Index of Abbreviated and Full Titles of Scientific and Technical PeriodicalLiterature. Prepared by Liaison Office, Technical Information Center, MCLTD.Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Washington, 1959. 247 p. [Partial transla-tion].

32. FISHER, E. L. Abbreviations of Russian scientific serial publications. Amer. Docum.10: 192-208, July 1959.

33. International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation. Code international d'abrevia-tions des titres de periodiques. Paris, 1930. 12 p.

34. -. Supplement au Code international d'abreviations des titres de periodiques.Paris, 1932. 18 p.

35. International Organization for Standardization. Standardization in the Domain ofDocumentation. The Hague, 1954. p. 4-7.

36. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Report on theActivities and the Meeting of the Co-ordinating Committee on Abstracting and

ABBREVIATIONS FOR MEDICAL JOURNAL TITLES 337

Indexing in the Medical and Biological Sciences, 1950. UNESCO Publication 580.p. 35.

37. Ibid., p. 57-62.38. Ibid., p. 66-71.39. International Conference on Science Abstracting convened by the United Nations

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in Paris, from 20 to 25 June1949. Final Report. 1951. p. 156.

40. World Medical Periodicals. Paris, WHO and UNESCO, 1953. 237 p.41. World Medical Periodicals. 2d ed. New York, World Medical Association, 1957. 340 p.41a. World Medical Periodicals. 3d ed. New York, World Medical Association, 1961.

407 p. (This edition appeared after the present article was submitted for publication.Although the analysis of WMP is here based on the second edition, the basic theoryand form of abbreviations in the third edition remain substantially unchanged.)

42. COURTRIGHT, B. F. Journal titles in medical bibliography. In Johns Hopkins Uni-versity. Welch Medical Library. Terminal Report of Indexing Research Project.Baltimore, 1951. Appendix 3, 31 p. and 2 Supp.

43. Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office, United States Army.Washington, 1880. Vol. 1, p. iv.

44. Ibid., p. [1].45. The National Library of Medicine Index Mechanization Project,July 1, 1958-June 30,

1960. BULLETIN 49: No. 1, Pt. 2, Jan. 1961. 96 p.46. FULTON, J. F. The principles of bibliographical citation: an informal discourse ad-

dressed to writers of scientific papers. BULLETIN 22: 183-197, April 1934.


APPENDIX I

RULES FOR ABBREVIATION OF PERIODICAL TITLES

Capitalization

The first letter of each word of the abbreviation is capitalized regardless of syntax.

Punctuation

All punctuation, such as periods, commas, apostrophes, hyphens, and semicolons, isomitted.

Accents

All accents and other diacritical marks are omitted. In German the umlauted a, 6 andiu are written ae, oe and ue respectively (except in place names). In the Scandinavianlanguages a, a, 6 and 0 are written a, a, o and o, respectively. In the Russian translitera-tion, the ligature and the apostrophe are disregarded. In the Chinese transliteration, theapostrophe is disregarded.

Particles

Articles, conjunctions (including the ampersand), prepositions, and other particles areomitted from abbreviations. Exceptions are permitted if omission of the particle results inan unintelligible abbreviation (as for M & B Pharmaceutical Bulletin).

Length of Word

The usual method of abbreviation is by omission of the last letters of a word. Lettersare not omitted within a word to form contractions. The only exceptions to this rule arethe German words containing time designations (Mbl for Monatsblatter, Mh for Monats-hefte, Mschr for Monatsschrift, Mkurse for Monatskurse, Vjschr for Vierteljahrsschrift, Wschrfor Wochenschrift) and the form Zbl for Zentralblatt.

Abbreviations will, in general, be formed by the truncation of at least two letters. Ab-breviation by dropping merely a single letter is permissible for cognate words if the re-sulting abbreviations are similar (as Stud for Studi and Studies) and for derivative wordsif the resultant abbreviations are similar or identical (as Cuba for Cuba, Cuban, cubanos,etc.).

In English the word Saint is contracted to St. The various forms in foreign languages(Saint [French], Sainte, San, Santa, Sankt, Sao, Sint and comparable forms) are shortened toS in abbreviations. Foreign contractions (St. [French], Ste., Sto., Sta.) are also shortenedto S.

Length of Title

Titles are abbreviated in general up to the point where the journal is clearly distin-guishable from another.

Since in theory the object of abbreviation is brevity, title abbreviations will in generalbe short; all elements of a full title need not be accounted for in the abbreviation. Thewords of the abbreviation will proceed in the order of the words of the full title only upto the point of positive identification of the journal.

Arch Mal Prof for Archives des maladies professionelles, de mcdecine dutravail et de skcurite' sociale

Titles consisting of a single word are not abbreviated.

338


Titles consisting of initials or abbreviations are reproduced in capital letters and with-out spacing.

BMQCADDZ

Acronyms within abbreviations are retained as above in capital letters and withoutspacing.

Arq IBITRev IBYSCron IDI

Omissions

Omission of words within a title will be permitted only under the following circum-stances:

a) If two or more generic names connected by and appear in the title, only the firstwill be used in the abbreviation.

Bol Soc Cir B Air for Boletines y trabajos; Sociedad de cirugia de BuenosAires

b) Explanatory or extraneous words appearing in the title may be omitted from theabbreviation if the omission does not affect the substance of the generic conceptand if the inclusion would materially affect the brevity.C R Acad Sci (Paris) for Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des se'ances de

l'Academie des sciencesC R Lab Carlsberg for Comptes rendus des travaux du Laboratoire Carls-

bergc) Unessential titular designations and political, geographical, or administrative sub-

divisions may be omitted from the abbreviation if the omission does not affect theidentity of the body or if the inclusion would materially affect the brevity.An Acad Nac Med (Madrid) for Anales de la Real academia nacional de

medicina (Madrid)butAnn Roy Coll Surg Eng for Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons

of Englandd) The parent body in corporate names may be omitted from the abbreviation if its

subdivision is distinctive enough to stand alone.An Fac Med S Paulo for Anais da Faculdade de medicina da Universidade

de Sao Paulo

Language

Cognate words having the same meaning in different languages (e.g., journal, giornale,Zhurnal; archivos, arquivos) are retained in their original form and abbreviated accordingly.

Titles are transliterated into the Roman alphabet using the systems in current practiceat the National Library of Medicine, viz., Library of Congress rules for the Greek andCyrillic alphabets (with omission of the ligature and apostrophe), modified Hepburnromanization for the Japanese, and the Wade-Giles romanization for the Chinese (withomission of the apostrophe).

Transliterated titles will be subjected to the same general rules of abbreviation obtain-ing for original titles. In the matter of questionable truncations, however, Index Medicusfavors not abbreviating.

339


Hifu Rinsho for Hifuka no Rinsho ["Clinical Studies in Dermatology"]butSaishin Igaku for Saishin Igaku ["Recent Medicine"]

If a journal title appears in the vernacular and in another language, the vernacularwill be the basis of the abbreviation.

If the vernacular requires transliteration, the transliteration will be the basis of theabbreviation. Present exceptions are some Japanese and Chinese titles: if the translationof the ideogram or the romanization appears on the outside cover of the journal, the ab-breviation will be based on these.

Place Names

Geographical names, whether noun or adjective, inflected or uninflected, may be ab-breviated. Abbreviation is usually avoided if the word is the first word of the abbreviatedtitle.

Abbreviation of the same place name in or out of the parentheses will be determinedby the length of the place name of itself and in relation to the rest of the abbreviation.Short names, however familiar, will gain little by abbreviation within short titles (e.g.,Sem Hop Paris).

Longer names are abbreviated only by omission of the last letters of single names orthe last letters of each of the elements of compound names (e.g., B Air for Buenos Aires)and not by contraction.

The common element -burg, -burgh, -bourg, etc., may appear as -b appended to the baseelement (as Luxemb in Bull Soc Sci Med Luxemb).

The word State is omitted from the abbreviations of State medical journal titles. Theword State appearing in an institutional name must be retained (as in Louisiana StateUniversity School of Medicine).

The only state names abbreviated are Calif(ornia), Conn(ecticut), Mich(igan), Minn-(esota), Okla(homa), Penn(sylvania), Tenn (essee), and the compound state names N(orth)Carolina, S(outh) Carolina, S(outh) Dakota and W(est) Virginia. New York must be writtenin full for initial appearance in an abbreviation, although NY will serve when it appearswithin the abbreviation.

The abbreviations N, E, S, W may be used for North, East, South, West or for Northern,Eastern, Southern, and Western only when these words are followed by a geographical name.The forms Northern, Eastern, Southern, Western, when not followed by a geographical name,are given in full at the beginning of a title but are shortened to North, East, South, Westwhen occurring within the body of a title. Intercardinal points will be spelled out, in theirshortest form, as Northwest for Northwest and Northwestern, Southeast for Southeast and South-eastern.

E Afr Med J for East AfricanS Dakota J Med Pharm for South DakotaPediat Clin N Amer for North AmericaNorthwest Med for NorthwestNorthwest Univ Dent Sch for NorthwesternProc North Cent Sect Amer Urol Ass for North CentralSouthern Med J for SouthernProc West Pharmacol Soc for Western

Place names within parentheses containing an initial definite article (La Habana, DenHaag) omit the initial article if the identity of the city is preserved; internal particles mustbe retained (Aix les Bains for Aix-les-Bains).

340


Personal Names

Proper names of historical, contemporary, or mythological figures in titles are notabbreviated.

Arch Maragliano Pat ClinArch Dc Vecchi Anat PatOchsner Clin RepMinerva Med

Proper names in inflected form in titles are given in uninflected form in abbreviations.Virchow Arch Path Anat for Virchows Archiv fur pathologische Ana-

tomie und Physiologie und fur klinischeMedizin

Zh Nevropat Psikhiat Korsakov for Zhurnal Nevropatologii i Psikhiatriiimeni S.S. Korsakova

When the title contains a personal name not a part of a corporate designation, onlythe family name is used regardless of the position of the name in the title.

Graefe Arch Ophthal for Albrecht von Graefes Archivffir OphthalmologiePersonal names which are part of the official title of a society or institution are given in

full when they appear at the beginning of a journal title; within the body of a title, givennames are omitted.

Henry Ford Hosp Med Bull for Henry Ford Hospital Medical BulletinBull Hopkins Hosp for Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital

Corporate Names

The parent body of corporate designations may be omitted from the abbreviation if itssubdivision is distinctive enough to stand alone.

Bull Ayer Clin Lab for Bulletin of the Ayer Clinical Laboratory of thePennsylvania Hospital

Tr Inst Norm Pat Fiziol for Trudy Instituta; Institut normal'noi i pato-(Moskva) logicheskoi fiziologii, Akademiia meditsinskikh

nauk SSSR

Selective Sections and Editions

Selective subdivisions or sections of general scientific publications or of specialties areidentified in abbreviated form in brackets.

Ann Univ Curie Sklodowska [Med] for Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Sklodowska; Sectio D, Medicina

Farmaco [Prat] for Farmaco; Edizione PraticaOther editions of parent publications are indicated in abbreviated form in brackets.

Acta Rheum [Eng] for Acta Rheumatologica; English Edition

Compound and Hyphenated Words

No hyphens are used in abbreviations.Nonhyphenated compound words are treated as single words, i.e., elements of the com-

pound words are not individually abbreviated.Ergebn Anat Entwicklungsgesch for Ergebnisse der Anatomie und Entwick-

lungsgeschichteHyphenated compound words are treated as single words, disregarding the hyphen,

except:

341


a) In hyphenated words artificially compounding separate geographical concepts, thehyphen is omitted and the elements are abbreviated separately.Acta Morph Neerl Scand for Acta morphologica Neerlando-Scandinavica4cta Gynaec Obstet Hisp Lusit for Acta gynaecologica et obstetrica Hispano-

Lusitanab) In hyphenations artificially compounded for stylistic reasons, the hyphen is omitted

and the elements are abbreviated separately.J Lancet for Journal-LancetBruxelles Med for Bruxelles-Medical

c) In broken compounds incorporating the conjunction and, the hyphens are omittedand the elements are abbreviated according to the usual rules.

Arch Ohr Nas Kehlkopfheilk for Archiv fiir Ohren-, Nasen- und Kehlkopf-heilkunde

d) In hyphenated proper names the hyphen is dropped.Hoppe Seyler Z Physiol Chem for Hoppe-Seyler's Zeitschrift fur physio-

logische Chemie

Place of Publication

The place of publication is added to the title abbreviation, in parentheses, in the fol-lowing circumstances only:

a) To distinguish non-English from English titles.J Physiol (London)J Physiol (Paris)

Anesth Analg (Cleveland)Anesth Analg (Paris)also

J Pediat (Rio)Med Trop (Marseille)Rev Hemat (Paris)

b) To distinguish one title from another.Khirurgiia (Moskva)Khirurgiia (Sofiia)

c) In journal titles beginning with the generic words Acta and Folia which contain noidentifying geographical word.

Acta Anaesth (Padova)butActa Anaesth Belg

d) To anticipate and avoid possible conflict with journals created in the future withsimilar titles within the same country, language, or specialty.

When the language of the journal title differs from the language of the country of origin,the place of publication, if used in the abbreviation, will be that of the country of origin.When a country has two or more official languages, the form of the place of publication

in parentheses will be arbitrarily selected by Index Medicus, e.g., (Brux) for Brussel orBruxelles; (Haag) for Den Haag, The Hague, 's Gravenhage.

The place of publication in parentheses is treated thus in titles containing corporatenames, such as institutes and hospitals:

a) If the corporate name is distinctive or specific, the place of publication will beomitted.Mem Inst Cruz for Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo CruzMilbank Mem Fund Quart for Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly

342

ABBREVIATIONS FOR MEDICAL JOURNAL TITLES 343

b) If the corporate name is general, common, indistinct or subject to conflict, the placeof publication will be supplied.Ann Inst Pasteur (Paris)Trans St John Hosp Derm Soc (London)

Place of publication is based on the location of the following, in order of choice: (1)major publisher; (2) minor publisher with distinctive imprint; (3) official sponsoring body(society, academy, institution, drug company, government agency, etc.); (4) editorialoffice of the official sponsoring body; (5) business office of the sponsoring body; (6) printer.When examination of the journal over a period of years discloses many changes in

publisher or printer, the location of the sponsoring agent is the preferred place of publica-tion. When the editorial offices of the sponsoring agent change frequently, the permanentor official address of the body is preferred.

Title Changes

When a full title is changed by the publisher, minor additions or deletions of words atthe end of the title will not be reflected in a new title abbreviation. Radical changes,however, at the beginning of a title or within the title which basically affect identificationof the journal and, therefore, the abbreviation, must be modified to conform to the titlechange.

Minerva Fisioter for change of Minerva fisioterapica to Minerva fisioterapica eradiologica

Ther Umsch for change of Therapeutische Umschau und medizinische Biblio-graphie to Therapeutische Umschau

butAMA Arch Derm to Arch Derm (Chicago) for change of A.M.A. Archives of Derma-

tology to Archives of Dermatology

APPENDIX I I.

DICTIONARY OF ABBREVIATIONS

The following is a selected list of abbreviations used by Index Medicus in the formulationof journal title abbreviations in the 1963 List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus. The fol-lowing general directions will help in using this dictionary. Words not found here shouldbe abbreviated in accordance with the patent abbreviation pattern of Index Medicus formsand in accordance with the practices outlined in the Rules for Abbreviation of PeriodicalTitles.

1. All abbreviated words are printed with initial capitals regardless of syntax and allare printed without accents or other diacritical marks. No period is used after any ab-breviation, contraction, or acronym.

2. When a word is not abbreviated, the nonabbreviated form may appear in the listin order to remind the user of practice.

3. The list is arranged alphabetically by the individual word or by the root of wordscommon to various languages or in various inflectional forms. For example, anatomical,Anatomie, anatomische, anatomicheskii, etc., are listed as anatom- and all are abbreviated Anat(without the period).

4. Differences in the spelling of roots are listed separately. For example, both microbiol-and mikrobiol- appear.

5. A few compound words appearing in the List of Journals Indexed are included in thelist below. A compound word not found in the list should be abbreviated, in general, to

the form in which the last element of the compound appears in the list. For example,radiopathology (not found here) would be abbreviated Radiopath on the basis of the listing

344 FRANK B. ROGERS AND THELMA CHAREN

Path for pathology; likewise, Strahlenforschung (not found here) would be abbreviated toStrahlenforsch on the basis of Forschung as the terminal element of the compound.

6. Geographical nouns and adjectives appearing in either the body of the abbrevia-tion or the parentheses following the abbreviation are given in a separate list. The usershould be reminded that a place name is not usually abbreviated when it appears as thefirst word of the title.

7. In general, nouns are listed in the nominative case regardless of the inflection inwhich the word appears in the title.

8. In general, adjectives are listed in the nominative masculine singular form regardlessof the inflection in which the adjective appears in the title. In a few cases when the in-flected word is not abbreviated but appears here in the dictionary in the form in whichit appears in the title, the entry will be that of the inflected form.

9. The user should be reminded that various words and phrases are omitted from ab-breviations. In accordance with the Rules of Abbreviation, articles, prepositions, conjunc-tions, and the like are omitted routinely in any language (e.g., against, contra, imeni areomitted from abbreviations). In addition, certain phrases which add nothing to the sub-stance of the title are also omitted from the abbreviation and consequently have no entryin this list. Those routinely omitted from abbreviations are auf dem Gebiete, und deren Grenz-gebiete, memoires in Bulletins et Memoires, memorias in Trabajosy Memorias, and similar phrases.

FREQUENTLY OCCURRING WORDSWORD ABBREVIATION WORD ABBREVIATION

abstracts Abstr apparat- Apparacadem- Acad applied Applaccademia Accad Arbeiten Arbacta Acta Arbeitsmedizin Arbeitsmedactas Actas archeion Archactualidad Actualidad archiv- Archactualites Actualites archiwum Archadvances Advances arcispedale ArcispedArzteblatt Aerztebl arhiv Arharztlich Aerztl arkhiv Arkhakadem- Akad arm&es Armeesakusherstvo Akush army Armyakustik- Akust arquivo Arqalergia Alergia Arzt Arztallergie Allergie asistencia Asistallergolog- Allerg asociaci6n Asocallergy Allergy associa- Assallgemein Allg atherosclerosis Atheroscleranaesthes- Anaesth atomic Atomanais An atti Attianales An attualita Attualitaanalysis Anal avances Avancesanatom- Anat bacteriolog- Bactanestesiolog- Anest bakteriolog- Baktanesthes- Anesth balneolog- Balneolannal- Ann batteriolog- Battannee Annee behavior Behavannual Ann Beitrage Beitr


WORD

Berichtbibliographybibliothecabiochem-biochim-biokhim-biolog-biophysic-biulleten'bladenBlutboletimbolezn'bollettinobrainbulletincahierscancerolog-cancr-carbohydratecardiolog-cardiovascularcasopiscellul-centercentralcercet'aricerebralchemi-chemotherap-chestchildhoodchildrenchimi-chromatographychroniccienciacientificocircolazionecircularcirculationcirugiacirujanoscirurgiacityclini-coeurcolegiocollege

ABBREVIATIONBerBibliogrBiblBiochemBiochimBiokhimBiolBiophysBiullB1BlutBolBolezBollBrainBullCahCancerCancrCarbohydCardiolCardiovCasCellCentCentCercetCerebChemChemotherChestChildChildChimChromatogrChronicCiencCientCircCircularCircCirCirCirCityClinCoeurColColl

communicationscompare

comprehensivecomptes rendusconceptsconferencecontrolcor

corrierecosmeticcouncilculturacuore

currentcytochem-cytolog-deafdent-dermatolog-developmentdiabetesdiagnos-dietadietolog-digest-diseasedisordersdivision

doctordocumenta-drugdrugseducationeksperimental-electrologieelectronicsematologiaembriologiaembryologyencyclopaediaendemicendocrinolog-endokrynol-enfermedadesenvironmentalenzymolog-epidemiolog-ErgebnisseErnahrung

ABBREVIATION

CommunCompComprC RConcConfContrCorCorrCosmetCouncCultCuoreCurrCytochemCytolDeafDentDermDevelopDiabetesDiagnDietaDietDigDisDisDivDoctorDocumDrugDrugsEducEkspElectrElectronicsEmatEmbriolEmbryolEncyclEndemEndocrEndokrEnfermEnvironEnzymEpidemErgebnErnaehr

345


WORD

estud-etudesevolutionexcerptaexperimental-facoltafactorsfacult-fakult-farmac-farmaceut-farmacolog-farmatsevt-fertilityfisicofisiolog-fiziolog-foliafoodForschungFortbildungFortschrittefunctionfysiolog-gacetagastroenterolog-gazetagazettegazzettaGeburtshilfegematologiiageneeskund-genet-geriatricsgerontolog-gesamtGesellschaftGesundheitswesengigienaginecolog-giornaleglasglasnikguideGynakologiegynecolog-handlingarHautHautkrankheiten

ABBREVIATION

EstudEtudEvolutExcerptaExpFacFactorsFacFakFarmFarmFarmacolFarmFertilFisFisiolFiziolFoliaFoodForschFortbildFortschrFunctFysiolGacGastroentGazGazGazzGeburtshGematGeneeskGenetGeriatGerontGesGesGesundhGigGinecGGlasGlasGuideGynaekGynecHandlHautHautkr

WORD

healthhearingHefteHeilkundehelminthologyhematologyhigien-higijen-histochem-histologyhistoryhomeopath-hopitauxHormonhormonehospit-humainhygien-hypnosisigien-illustrat-immunolog-industrial-industrieindustryinfanciainfect-infettivoinform-injuryinstitut-internalinternationalisotop-istitutoistologiaizotopizvestiiaJahrbuchjornaljournaljourneeskardiologiakhirurg-klini-Krankheitlaborlaborator-Laeger

346

ABBREVIATIONHealthHearingHefteHeilkHelminthHematHigHigHistochemHistolHistHomeopHopHormonHormoneHospHumHygHypnIgIllusImmunIndustrIndustrIndustrInfancInfectInfettInformInjInstInternIntIsotopIstIstolIzotopIzvJahrbJJJourneesKardiolKhirKlinKrLaborLabLaeg


WORD

lakartidningenlanguagelaringologialavorolechenielectureslegal-lekar-leprol-librarylistyliteraturelottamaladiesmalariolog-manedsskriftmateriamatern-meddelandenm6decin-medicin-meditsin-medycyn-memoiresmental-methodsmicrobiol-microscop-mikrobiol-mikroskop-militar-Mitteilungenmodern-MonatsbhitterMonatshefteMonatskurseMonatsschriftmondemondialmondomonograph-monthlymorfologiamorpholog-mundonacionalNasennational-natural-

ABBREVIATION

LakartidnLangLaringLavoroLechLectLegLekLeprLibrListyLitLottaMalMalarManedsskrMatMaternMeddMedMedMedMedMemMentMethMicrobiolMicrMikrobiolMikrMilitMittModMblMhMkurseMschrMondeMondMondoMonogrMonthlyMorfMorphMundoNacNasNatNatur

WORD

naturenaukinaval-neonatusnervenervosoneueneurolog-newnifionifiosnormal-nuclear-nursenursingnutritio-obstetr-occupationalodontolog-6ffentlichoncolog-ophthalmolog-optic-optometryoralorthopaedic-orvos-ospedal-osteopathicotolog-oto-rhino-laryngolog-ottalmologiapaediatr-palsypapersparasitolog-patholog-pediatr-perceptualperiodiqueperiodontologypharmaceut-pharmacolog-pharmacypharmazeut-phoniatr-photograph-physicalphysicians

ABBREVIATION

NatureNaukNavNeonatNerveNervNeueNeurolNewNinoNinosNormNuclNurseNursingNutrObstetOccupOdontOeffOncolOphthalOptOptomOralOrthopOrvOspedOsteopathOtolOtorhinolaryngOttalPaediatPalsyPapParasitPathPediatPerceptPeriodPeriodontPharmPharmacolPharmPharmPhoniatPhotogrPhysPhysicians

347


WORD

physicsphysiolog-plastic-podiatrypollutionpostepypracti-prax-pregledprensapresspressepreventiv eproblem-proceedingsproctolog-productsprofession-progres-psicoanalisi-psikhiatriiapsychiatr-psychoanalyticpsychodynamicspsycholog-psychosomat-pubblicapu'blicapublicacionespublicaqi5espublicationspubliquequantitativequimicoradiationradioaktivnihradiographyradiolog-rassegnarecentrecentesrechercherecordrecueilrehabilit-rendicontireportreproductionresearch

ABBREVIATIONPhysPhysiolPlastPodiatPollutPostepyPractPraxPreglPrensaPressPressePrevProblProcProctolProdProfProgrPsicoanalPsikhiatPsychiatPsychoanalPsychodynPsycholPsychosomPubblicaPublicaPublPublPublPubliqueQuantQuimRadiatRadioaktivRadiogrRadiolRassRecentRecentRechRecRecRehabRendicRepReprodRes

WORDresenharespirat-reumatol-reviewrevistarevue

revyrheumat-rhumatolog-riformarivistaR6ntgenroentgenolog-royal-Rundschausanatoriosanguinissanteschoolscience

scientiascientifi-scienza

semainesemana

seminarservic-settimanasifilografiasistem-social-societ-sovremennyisperimentalespitalstiintificstomatolog-stud-superior-supplementsurgeonsurgerysurveysympos-syphilographiesystemtandheelkundetechni-technolog-

ABBREVIATION

ResenRespReumRevRevRevRevRheumRhumRiformaRivRoentgenRoentgenRoyRundschSanatSangSanteSchSciSciSciSciSemSemSeminarServSettimSifSistSocSocSovrSperSpitalStiintStomatStudSupSupplSurgSurgSurveySymposSyphSystTandheelkTechnTechn

348


WoiB

terap-theor-therap-therapeut-thorac-thoraxtidskrifttidsskrifttijdschrifttisiolog-toracet6raxtoxicologytransactionstransfusiontransplantationtraumatraumatolog-trud-tuberculos-tumorumanounionuniversidad-universit-urolog-vakbladvedavegetativo

WoinAfricaAfricanAfriqueAlabamaAlaskaAlgerieAmericaAmericanAmsterdamArgentinaargentinoArizonaArkansasAsianAustralasianAustraliaAustralian

ABBREVIATION

TerTheorTherTherThoracThoraxTTTTisiolToraceToraxToxicTransTransfusTransplantTraumaTraumaTrTubercTumorUmUnUnivUnivUrolVakblVedVeg

WORD

venerealvenereologyvestnikveterinar-Vierteljahrsschriftvirolog-virusvirusologiiaVitamineVitaminolog-vitaminsvjesnikvoprosyvysshiiweekbladwetenschappenweterynaryjnyWissenschaftWochenschriftwydzialx-rayyearzahnarztlichzasshiZeitschriftZeitungZentralblattZhurnalzoolog-

GEOGRAPHIC NAMESABBREVITION WORD

AfrAfrAfrAlabamaAlaskaAlgerieAmerAmerAmstArgentArgentArizonaArkansasAsianAustAustAust

Austriacusazerbaidzhan-BarcelonaBaselbelg-BerlinBerlinerBolognaBombayBrasilbrasileiroBratislavaBritishBruxellesBucurestiBudapestBuenos Aires

ABBREVIATION

VenerVenerVestnVetVjschrVirolVirusVirusVitamineVitaminVitaminsVjesnVopVysshWeekblWetWeterynWissWschrWydzXrayYearZahnaerztlzzZeitungZblZhZool

ABBREVIATION

AustriaAzerbaidzhBarcBaselBelgBerlinBerlinBolognaBombayBrasilBrasilBratislBritBruxBucurBudapB Air

349


WORD

CaliforniaCanadaCanadiancanadienCechoslovacusceskoslovensk'y6esk'yChicagoChilechilenoChineseClevelandConnecticutCosta RicacubanoCzechoslovakDanishdanskDelawareDetroitdeutschDeutschlandDistrict of ColumbiadominicanoecuatorianoEl SalvadorEnglandEnglishEspafiaespaniolEuropEuropeeuropeenEuropeusFenniafinskFirenzeFloridaFrancefrancaisFrankfurtFrankfurterGdain'skGen&veGenovaGeorgiaGermanGermanicusGuatemala

ABBREVIATION

CalifCanadaCanadCanadCechCeskCeskChicagoChileChileChinClevelandConnCosta RicaCubaCzechDanishDanskDelawareDetroitDeutschDeutschDCDominicEcuatEl SalvadorEngEngEspEspEuropEuropeEuropEuropFennFinskFirenzeFloridaFranceFrancFrankfurtFrankfurtGdanskGeneveGenovaGeorgiaGermanGermanGuatemala

WOiD

Guyane Fran,aisDen HaagLa HabanahaitienHawaiiHebrewhellen-HelvetiaHelveticusHispalishispano-lusitanohondurenloHungaricusibericoibero-americanoIdahoIllinoisIndiaIndianIndianaIndonesiaIowaIranicusIrishIsraelItali-IugoslavicusJapanJapanesejapanischJaponicusKansaskazakhskiikazanskiiKentuckyK0benhavnKyotolatino-americanoLatinusLebaneseLeipzigLeningradLeningradskiilibanaisLiegeLilleLimaLisboaLondon

ABBREVIATION

Guyane FrancHaagHabanaHaitiHawaiiHebrewHellenHelvHelvHispHisp LusitHondurHungIberIber AmerIdahoIllinoisIndiaIndianIndianaIndonesiaIowaIranIrishIsraelItalIugoslJapJapJapJapKansasKazakhKazanKentuckyKobenhavnKyotoLat AmerLatLebanLeipzigLeningrLeningrLibanLiegeLilleLimaLisboaLondon

350


WORD

Los AlamosLos AngelesLouisianaLuxembourgLyonlyonnaisMadridmagyarMaineMalayaMarocMarseilleMarylandMelbournemexicanoMexicoMichiganmilaneseMilanoMinneapolisMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontevideoMontrealmoskovskiiMoskvaMoyen-OrientMunchenerNagasakiNancyNapoliNebraskaNederland-NeerlandicusNeerlando-

ScandinavicusNew EnglandNew JerseyNew YorkNew ZealandNewarkNicaraguaNippon-nordisknorskNorth CarolinaNova ScotiaOhio

ABBREVIATION

Los AlamosLos AngelesLouisianaLuxembLyonLyonMadridMagyMaineMalayaMarocMarseilleMarylandMelbourneMexMexMichMilanMilanoMinneapMinnMississippiMissouriMontevMontrealMoskovMoskvaMoyen OrientMunchenNagasakiNancyNapoliNebraskaNederlNeerl

Neerl ScandNew EngNew JerseyNYNew ZealNewarkNicaraguaNipponNordNorskN CarolinaNova ScotiaOhio

WORD

OklahomaOntarioOsloOutre-MerPacific CoastPadovaPanamfapanamenopanamericanoParanaParispaulistoPennsylvaniaPeruperuanoPhiladelphiaPhilippinePhilippinuspiemonteseplzenskyPolon-polskiP6rtoP6rto AlegrePortugalportuguesoPoznanpoznanskiPrahaPuerto RicoRio de JaneiroRomaromandeRussianSao PauloScandinav-schweizer-SienaSouth AfricaSouth AfricanSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaS.S.S.R.St. LouisStockholmStuttgartSuisseSuomisvensk

ABBREVATION

OklaOntarioOsloOutre MerPacif CoastPadovaPanamaPanamenPanamerParanaParisPaulPennPeruPeruPhilaPhilippPhilippPiemontPlzenPolPolPortoP AlegrePortPortPoznanPoznanPrahaP RicoRioRomaRomRussS PauloScandSchweizSienaS AfrS AfrS CarolinaS DakotaSSSRSt LouisStockholmStuttgartSuisseSuomSvensk

351

352

WORD

SverigeTennesseeTokyoTorinoTorontoToulouseTunisTunisieturkTurkmenistanukrains'kyiUnited KingdomUnited StatesUppsalaUpsaliensis


ABBREVIATION

SverigeTennTokyoTorinoTorontoToulouseTunisTunisTurkTurkmenUkrUKUSUppsalaUpsal

WORD

ural'skiiUruguayuruguayoU. S.UzbekistanvenetoVeneziavenezolanoVietnamicusVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWienWienerWisconsin

ABAREVIATION

UralUrugUrugUSUzbekVenetoVeneziaVenezolanoVietnamVirginiaWashW VirginiaWienWienWisconsin

abbreviations for medical journal titles

Technology

lists of title abbreviations

medical journal titles

journal format

particular title

year of publication

costs of publication

national bodies

simple arbitrary abbreviations