Index Medicus -national Library Of Medicine- Abbreviations For Journal Titles

Note the difference: The NLM style removes the periods, while the ISO standard typically retains them. Most medical journals prefer the NLM style (no periods).

There, in the margin, in faded pencil, was a note from a previous librarian:

Founded in 1879 by John Shaw Billings, librarian of the Surgeon General’s Office of the U.S. Army, the Index Medicus was a monthly classified record of the current medical literature of the world. It was, in essence, Google printed on paper. Every month, librarians and physicians would scan hundreds of international journals, extract the citations, and organize them by subject and author.

When searching PubMed, using the correct abbreviation can sometimes help narrow down search results, particularly when the journal name is generic (e.g., Science or Nature ).