English or German? The language of medicine in original papers cited in Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift from 1920 to 1995

Aim of study: To describe and analyse the frequency of English and German in the bibliographical references from the original articles published in ''Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift'' during the past 75 years (1920-1995). Methods: The language of publication of 16001 references from 800 original papers, at the rate of 50 articles per year at intervals of 5 years, was determined. Results: The percentage of references in German has been decreasing during the whole studied period: 90.1% in 1920, 85.9% in 1935, 75.8% in 1950, 44.1% in 1965, 31.0% in 1980, and 16.4% in 1995. The percentage of references in English, on the contrary, has continued to increase: 3.2% in 1920, 10.6% in 1935, 21.5% in 1950, 50.0% in 1965, 66.2% in 1980, and 82.8% in 1995. Conclusion: Even though the importance of English has been increasing during the entire considered period, it did not clearly supplant German as the main language of medicine in Germany until 1975.