[The language of medicine in Austria (1920-1995)]

The objective of this study was to perform a citation analysis of the frequency of the various languages used in the bibliographical references of the original articles published in the Wiener klinische Wochenschrift during the past 75 years (1920-1995). The languages of publication were recorded of 14,667 references from 800 original papers, at the rate of 50 articles per year at intervals of five years. The percentage of references in German remained constant until 1946, but has been decreasing progressively since that time: 87% in 1920, 84% in 1946, 51% in 1970, and 20% in 1995. The percentage of references in English, on the other hand, has continued to increase, especially since 1946: 3% in 1920, 9% in 1946, 41% in 1970, and 79% in 1995. Even though the importance of English started to increase as from 1946, it did not supplant German as the main language of medicine in Austria until 1980 (thirty years later than usually accepted up to now).