Edward Bermingham and the archives of clinical surgery: America's First Surgical Journal.

OBJECTIVE

To explore the life of Edward J. Bermingham (1853-1922) and his founding, in 1876, of the Archives of Clinical Surgery, the nation's first surgical journal.

BACKGROUND

Beginning in the 1870s, American medicine found itself in the middle of a revolution marked by fundamental economic, scientific, and social transformations. For those physicians who wanted to be regarded as surgeons, the push toward specialization was foremost among these changes. The rise of surgery as a specialty was accomplished through various new initiatives; among them was the development of dedicated literature in the form of specialty journals to disseminate news of surgical research and technical innovations in a timely fashion.

METHODS

An analysis of the published medical and lay literature and unpublished documents relating to Edward J. Bermingham and the Archives of Clinical Surgery.

RESULTS

At a time when surgery was not considered a separate branch of medicine but a mere technical mode of treatment, Bermingham's publication of the Archives of Clinical Surgery was a milestone event in the ensuing rise of surgery as a specialty within the whole of medicine.

CONCLUSIONS

The long forgotten Archives of Clinical Surgery provides a unique window into the world of surgery, as it existed when the medical revolution and the process of specialization were just beginning. For this reason, the Archives is among the more important primary resources with which to gain an understanding of prescientific surgery as it reached its endpoint in America.