Lancet archive goes online

A project to store every issue of The Lancet medical journal in a searchable database has been completed, making the digital archive a major resource for medical researchers and historians.

The Lancet was founded in 1823 by Thomas Wakley to campaign against what he saw as corruption in the medical establishment. It has since become one of the most important medical journals in the world. The Lancet carried the first reports on blood transfusions, antibiotics, and antiseptics and also covered many issues, such as bungled operations and hospital hygiene, that continue to dog health services today.

The project, which took two years to complete, converted a total of 340,000 articles into digital format and put them into a fully searchable database. In the past, it was very difficult for researchers to trace individual articles and few libraries had a complete set. Many older volumes were in a fragile condition.

People will have to pay to access the database and, for most researchers, this means they will still have to visit one of the major reference libraries in order to use it.

Selected issues can be downloaded via the publisher's Science Direct website: http://www.tamu.edu/pvamu/library/