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Editorial
. 2008 Jan;105(3):37-40.
doi: 10.3238/arztebl.2008.0037. Epub 2008 Jan 18.

The languages of medicine

Christopher Baethge
Editorial

The languages of medicine

Christopher Baethge. Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2008 Jan.
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The representation of German-, French-, and English-language journals in the Index Medicus and Medline, 1879–2007 (from [1] and data obtained by the author) Lippert [1] determined the languages of the journals from their titles. The number of German-language journals prior to 1977 is, therefore, somewhat higher than documented, because some of the journals with Latin titles (11% of the 2265 journals listed in the Index Medicus in 1967) were actually written in German. Absolute numbers for 1879: among 810 journals in the Index Medicus, 284 were in English, 201 in German, and 160 in French. Absolute numbers for 2007: among 5204 journals in Medline, 4609 (88.6%) were in English, 98 (1.9%) in German, and 81 (1.6%) in French.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The percentage of references in the mother tongue in six international medical journals (–7) Method: Navarro counted the references in 50 original articles in each journal at 5-year intervals (–7).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The percentage of references in the national language among all journals listed in Medline published in nine different countries The site of publication was determined from the entry under "Country" in the Medline Journals Database (e.g., "Country: Germany"), while the language of publication was determined from the entry under "Language." The numbers in parentheses indicate the total number of journals listed in Medline that were published in each country as of October 2007.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Lippert H. Rückzug der deutschen Sprache aus der Medizin? Med Klin. 1978;73:487–496. - PubMed
    1. Navarro FA. Englisch oder Deutsch? Die Sprache der Medizin aufgrund der in der Deutschen Medizinischen Wochenschrift erschienenen Literaturangaben (1920-1995) Dtsch Med Wschr. 1996;121:1561–1566. - PubMed
    1. Navarro FA. Die Sprache der Medizin in der Schweiz von 1920 bis 1995. Schweiz Med Wochenschr. 1997;127:1565–1573. - PubMed
    1. Navarro FA. Die Sprache der Medizin in Österreich (1920-1925) Wien Klin Wochenschr. 1996;108:362–369. - PubMed
    1. Navarro FA. L’importance de l’anglais et du francais sur la base des references bibliographiques de travaux originaux publies dans La Presse Medicale. La Presse Medicale. 1995;24:1547–1551.

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