Published: 13 August 2016
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Last year at a stamp collector's show, I purchased a burnt orange coloured unsealed envelope addressed to “I.S. Chase M.D., Bristol NH” with a return address reading “M.T. Richardson, Publisher, P.O. Box 2348. New York”. The envelope is stamped with an 1887 1 cent Benjamin Franklin postage stamp and postmarked as an advertising circular. The envelope contained a letter from Richardson, dated Dec 11, 1889, that mentions the possibility of reprinting The Lancet in the USA (image), along with a reply postcard on which is printed: “Please enter my name as a subscriber to The Lancet(reprint of the London edition)”. These items of correspondence offer a brief glimpse into the world of medical journal publishing in late 19th-century America.
Milton T Richardson was born in 1843 and was a US Civil War veteran, publisher, politician, and civic leader. The journals and books he published are a litany of a bygone era: Blacksmith and Wheelwright and Tractor Repair Journal, Practical Carriage-Building, and Everybody's Paint Book. The letter's recipient, Ira Stephen Chase, graduated from Dartmouth Medical College in 1841 and attended Harvard Medical School in 1842–43. Chase first practised in Alexandria, New Hampshire, where his home was destroyed by arson attributable to his support of prohibition. He moved to Bristol, New Hampshire, where he practised for 50 years. After the Civil War he was a member of the US Examining Board of Surgeons to examine applicants for pensions. According to a 1904 biography, Chase had “a well earned reputation as a well read, conscientious, faithful, and successful physician. He took a lively interest in all movements for the public good, and on all public questions he took a positive position for what he thought was right.”
Between 1797 and 1878 about 250 medical journals began publication in the USA. The invention and commercialisation of the steamship, the railroad, the telegraph, the steam-driven printing press, and reliable postal services all contributed to the dissemination of medical information through journals. But it was a challenging market. Many journals published a few issues but failed to gain an economically viable list of subscribers and went out of business. High printing costs and difficulties in collecting subscription fees impeded success.
It was an era when American doctors of all types felt free to express their point of view in a rich variety of publications—botanical, eclectic, dental, water cure, Thomsonian, and all manner of pro and anti various theories of contagion journals were published in this period. Some doctors were convinced that the flora and climate of the USA created a unique spectra of disease and, therefore, required distinctly American medical journals. Economic motives drove others, thanks to advertising by patent medicines and marketing by proprietary medical schools that promoted themselves by publishing journals which featured articles by faculty members. The New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery and the Collateral Branches of Science appeared in 1812. The American Medical Association (AMA), founded in 1846, published its Journal of the American Medical Association in 1883 at a subscription rate of US$6 per year. This was an incentive to join the AMA since, for $5 per year, one could be a member and receive the subscription. By 1879 the founder of the Library of the Office of the Surgeon General of the US Army and creator of Index Medicus, John Shaw Billings, wrote:
In the USA before the early 1890s only a citizen or resident could acquire a copyright. Authors from outside the US could temporarily reside in the USA or find a real or invented American collaborator to claim as a co-author. Americans became accustomed to cheap, pirated books and magazines. Benjamin Franklin, as a printer, republished the work of British authors and neither sought permission nor offered to pay them. By the time of his US visit in 1842, Charles Dickens was lambasting Americans as pirates for refusing to respect international copyrights. W S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan became internationally famous after the success of HMS Pinafore in the 1870s, but they didn't receive a penny in American royalties. Gilbert declared “I will not have another libretto of mine produced if the Americans are going to steal it. It's not that I need the money so much, but it upsets my digestion.”
North American medical journal publishers found nothing sacred in the use of the title The Lancet. The term “Lancet” appeared in the titles of 19th-century North American journals fairly frequently, including, among many others, Lancet (Newark, NJ, 1803), American Lancet (New York, NY, 1830–31), American Lancet (Philadelphia, PA, 1833), New York Lancet (New York, NY, 1842–43), Lancet-clinic: a weekly journal of medicine and surgery (Cincinnati, OH, 1842–1916 also titled or subtitled Western Lancet, Cincinnati Lancet and Observer, Cincinnati Lancet and Clinic, Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic at different times), The Canada Lancet, Nelson's American Lancet (Pittsburgh, New York, and Montreal), and The Journal-Lancet (“The Official Journal of the North Dakota and South Dakota State Medical Associations”).
The first edition of The Lancet as we know it today was published in London in 1823, the product of the reforming zeal of its founder Thomas Wakley (1795–1862). 19 years after the appearance of The Lancet, a New York journal was published titled The London Lancet: A Journal of British and Foreign Medical and Chemical Sciences, Criticism, Literature and News. This US publication identified the editor as “Thomas Wakley, surgeon, M.P. for the Metropolitan District of Finsbury” and J Henry Bennett, MD, as Sub-Editor. The US edition was first published by Thomas Walsh, followed by Stringer, Townsend, and Company and Burgess, Stringer, and Company. Burgess and Stringer became associated with the enterprise as agents for Walsh. Burgess and Stringer were later described as publishers of “a reprint of the London Lancet”.
By 1844 Walsh identified himself as the “American publisher of the London Lancet” in an advertisement and touted his journal as:
A side-by-side comparison of the 1846 London and New York versions of The Lancet shows that articles in the London version appear in New York, verbatim, about 4 months later. The American version was a compilation of multiple weekly editions of the London version packaged together and issued monthly. A series of lectures which appeared, one per week in London, were grouped together in the New York version. Small differences in the illustrations indicate they were redrawn. News items, advertisements, and obituaries are absent in the New York version.
A report in 1879 advised that “The London Lancet (American reprint) will hereafter be issued by the Industrial Publication Company…New York. The Lancet has recently been enlarged and improved.” This company appears to have continued to publish the New York version through 1887. In his letter of 1889 Richardson seems to be attempting to succeed The Industrial Publication Company. Walsh's description of himself as “the American publisher” of The Lancet, the fact that he printed the name and address of the London publisher, and his description of himself as the “republisher” of the journal and calling it a “reprint” suggest that, contrary to the prevailing practices of the times, the New York edition appeared with the consent of Wakley and his successors along with some payment. Given Wakley's litigious nature, it seems likely that had the American edition been pirated, Wakley would have defended his interests in court. Richardson reports that he desires to “reprint…the London edition”.
Chase never returned his postcard to Richardson and there is no evidence that Richardson's version of The Lancet ever appeared. After New York's The London Lancet disappeared there were American versions of The Lancet titled New York Lancet, and Lancet (New York), but the North American edition of The Lancet US subscribers are now accustomed to did not begin publication until 1966.
I am grateful for the assistance of members of US Postmark Collector's Club in the analysis of the envelope and the research assistance of the librarians of the New York Academy of Medicine and New York Medical College.
Further reading
- Billings, JS. The medical journals of the United States. Boston Med Surg J. 1879; 100: 1–14
- in: WF Bynum, S Lock, R Porter (Eds.) Medical iournals and medical knowledge: historical essays. Routledge, London and New York; 1992
- Cassedy, HJ. The flourishing and character of early American medical journalism, 1797–1860. J Hist Med Allied Sci. 1983; 38: 135–150
- Ebert, M. The rise and development of the American medical periodical, 1797–1850. Bull Med Lib Assoc. 1952; 40: 243–276
- Kahn, RJ and Kahn, PG. The Medical Repository—the first U.S. medical journal (1797–1824). N Engl J Med. 1997; 26: 1926–1929
