Scientific articles have hardly changed in 50 years: ...but Asher was asking why medical journals were so dull back then

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7461.352-b

BMJ 2004;329:352 (7 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7461.352-b

Letter

Scientific articles have hardly changed in 50 years

...but Asher was asking why medical journals were so dull back then

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

EDITOR—Smith notices little change in the format of medicalpapers in 50 years,¹ yet it was in 1958, almost 50 years ago,that Richard Asher asked: "Why are medical journals so dull?"²

May I suggest that Asher's small classic be a candidate forre-publication, if only to stimulate the next generation ofeditors and writers? Indeed, why are other classic BMJ papersof the past not on the web? If a paper is not on the web itis (almost) lost to the collective memory.

Tim Benson, director

Abies, London NW3 7PL tim.benson@abies.co.uk

Competing interests: None declared.

Smith R. Scientific articles have hardly changed in 50 years. BMJ 2004;328: 1533. (26 June.)[Free Full Text]
British Medical Association. A sense of Asher: a new miscellany. London: BMA, 1984: 78-84.