Index Medicus Attempts to Index All Medical Periodical Literature

Under the direction of John Shaw Billings, in 1879 the Library of the Surgeon General's Office (to be redesignated in 1956 the National Library of Medicine) began publication of the Index Medicus—  an effort to index all of medical periodical literature.

Index Medicus finally ceased publication in print in 2004. The project continued online in the various databases maintained by the National Library of Medicine, including Medline.