The New England Journal of Medicine

In November 1846, , a Boston surgeon, reported a breakthrough in the search for surgical anesthetics with the first uses of inhaled ether in 1846. This allowed patients to remain sedated during operations ranging from dental extraction to amputation.^[13] "A patient has been rendered completely insensible during an amputation of the thigh, regain consciousness after a short interval," Bigelow wrote. "Other severe operations have been performed without the knowledge of the patients."

Henry Jacob Bigelow

In June 1906, published an article that described how he stained and studied bone marrow with descriptions of what are now known as megakaryocytes and platelets.^[14]

James Homer Wright

In October 1872, a lecture by was published that proposed the then-revolutionary idea that one cerebral hemisphere can influence both sides of the body. The neurologist would go on to describe what is now known as the Brown-Séquard syndrome.^[15]

Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard

In June 1948, reported promising results in treatment of early childhood leukemia. Based on anecdotal evidence that children with acute leukemia worsened if they were given folic acid, he worked on blocking folic acid metabolism. His team gave 16 infants and children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia a folic acid inhibitor, aminopterin—10 showed improvement by clinical and hematologic parameters after three months.^[16] In his article, Farber advised receiving the results cautiously: "It is again emphasized that these remissions are temporary in character and that the substance is toxic and may be productive of even greater disturbances than have been encountered so far in our studies," he wrote. "No evidence has been mentioned in this report that would justify the suggestion of the term 'cure' of acute leukemia in children."

Sidney Farber

In November 1952, cardiologist published an early report on resuscitation of the heart. "The purpose of this report is to describe the successful use in 2 patients of a quick, simple, effective and safe method of arousing the heart from ventricular standstill by an artificial, external, electric pacemaker," he wrote. "For the first time it was possible to keep a patient alive during ventricular asystole lasting for hours to days. This procedure may prove valuable in many clinical situations."^[17]

Paul Zoll

In February 1973, NEJM published the first report of polyp removal using a and introduced a procedure during screening to reduce cancer risk. The authors reported on 218 patients, from whom they removed 303 polyps (at one or more procedures per patient).^[18]

colonoscope

published in the NEJM in 1980 was later described by the journal as having been "heavily and uncritically cited"^[19] to claim that addiction due to use of opioids was rare, and its publication in such an authoritative journal was used by pharmaceutical companies to push widespread use of opioid drugs, leading to an addiction crisis in the U.S. and other countries.^[20]

A letter

In December 1981, two landmark articles^[22] described the clinical course of four patients—first reported in the CDC's June 1981 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report—with the disease that would come to be known as AIDS.

[21]

In April 2001, et al. reported a targeted therapy for chronic myelogenous leukemia. Based on the knowledge that BCR-ABL, a constitutively activated tyrosine kinase, causes CML, the authors tested with success an inhibitor of this tyrosine kinase in patients who had failed first-line therapy. The finding helped begin the era of designing cancer drugs to target specific molecular abnormalities.^[23]

Brian Druker

In October 2020, the journal published an editorial, signed by all 34 editors, in which they condemned the 's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic saying that "they are dangerously incompetent" and that "they have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy." This is the first time NEJM has ever supported or condemned a political candidate and only three other times in history has an editorial been signed by all the editors.^[24]

Trump administration

In April 2021, et al. demonstrated that in the pharmacological treatment of major depressive disorder, there was no significant difference in antidepressant effects between the psychedelic drug psilocybin and the SSRI escitalopram after six weeks.^[25] Significant doses of psilocybin were only administered twice in the six-week period, while escitalopram was taken daily. This was the first time psychedelics and SSRIs were compared in the treatment of depression.^[26][27][28]

Robin Carhart-Harris

Videos in Clinical Medicine, peer-reviewed educational videos to teach procedures requiring skilled techniques and specialized physical examination.

[33]

Interactive Medical Cases, which mimic a clinical encounter by presenting the patient's history with results of the physical examination and laboratory and radiographic tests. Multiple-choice questions throughout test the taker's knowledge.

[34]

NEJM Archive, the entire collection of the journal's published material.

[32]

1921–1937

Walter Prentice Bowers

1937–1947

Robert Nason Nye

1947–1967

Joseph Garland

1967–1977

Franz J. Ingelfinger

1977–1991

Arnold S. Relman

1991–1999

Jerome P. Kassirer

1999–2000

Marcia Angell

2000–2019

Jeffrey M. Drazen

2019–present

Eric Rubin

List of medical journals

Conaboy, Chelsea (June 17, 2012). . The Boston Globe Magazine (milestones of the NEJM).

"You've come a long way, doc"

Müller, Daniel C.; Duff, Ellen M.C.; Stern, Kathy L. (2012). . The New England Journal of Medicine. 366 (1): e3. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1114819. PMID 22216863.

"Timeline: 200 years of the New England Journal of Medicine"

Official website