ABSTRACT
After returning to Spain from a research period in London on a Wellcome Trust scholarship, José Maria López Piñero published in 1973 a short book entitled John Hughlings Jackson (1835-1911), Evolucionismo y Neurologia (Madrid, Editorial Moneda). Written from the perspective of the classical German medical historiography that the author had imbibed from Werner Leibbrand and Annemarie Wettley, this work truly added to Jacksonian scholarship. Neither hagiographic nor nitpicking, it offered a sober assessment of the contribution of the great Yorkshireman and it was soon to become a minor classic among connoisseurs. Although important additions to Jacksonian scholarship have appeared since 1973, López Piñero's book has retained its relevance. It will be published in History of Psychiatry in two parts.
Subject(s)
Historiography , Neurology/history , Psychiatry/history , England , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , SpainABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: To contribute to improving the understanding of the information bases of Spanish scientific production in the primary care field; to aid international contacts and the diffusion of information among doctors in our country. DESIGN: A bibliometric analysis of the bibliographic references of the studies published in the journal Atención Primaria during 1991. A data base, managed by dBASE IV, was created. SETTING: The Unit of Documental Analysis and Bibliometry of the Institute of Documental and Historical Studies in Science (University of Valencia-CSIC). MATERIAL: 2,615 bibliographic references in 205 studies contained in volume 8 of Atención Primaria. MAIN RESULTS: References from journal articles (68%) and books (26%) predominated. There were a large number of references from Spanish publications (45%) as against Northamerican (27%) and British (15%). There were few references from other European countries or Latin America. Information was quickly out of date (4 year semiperiod; Price index 50%). High proportion of self-quotations from the journal. CONCLUSIONS: The major role of the journal Atención Primaria in communicating information in the primary care field was underlined. The small amount of information from Latin America and E.U. countries (except Great Britain) highlights the isolation of Spain from these countries, which can be explained by the limits of the primary care field itself. There was also little use of information to which access was more difficult for primary care doctors, such as doctoral theses, congress papers or reports. Moreover this is a field with a high percentage of recent literature and rapidly out-of-date information.
Subject(s)
Bibliometrics , Periodicals as Topic , Primary Health Care , Bibliographies as Topic , SpainABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Scientific communication knowledge is specifically based in the analysis of the bibliographic references inside the publications. Pattern and laws determining the information consumption in the items of the journal Medicina Clinica are investigated in the present study as its own aim. METHODS: An analysis was performed on the 13,286 references downloaded from 618 papers published by the journal in 1990. With dBASE IV was generated a database for the management of the information; data was distributed in several tables through criteria of age, documentary types, countries, journals and Bradford zones. RESULTS: The analysed references belong to 1,241 different journals, 110 from Spain. Being two thirds of the total sum, the publications from United States and United Kingdom have received more citations than those from Spain. The publications from european countries, like France, Germany and Italy, are scarcely present. Bradford core is constituted by the journals Medicina Clinica and The Lancet. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of the bibliographic references available from the articles in this journal is able to produce knowledge on the information consumption by the practitioners; its usefulness as a complementary utility to the Indice de Citas e Indicadores Bibliométricos de Revistas Españolas de Medicina Interna y sus especialidades 1990 must be considered.
