Two Hundred Years of the Lancet: From Quack to Anti-Vax, or How the Lancet Took a Stand

Abstract:

This essay traces the rise of the Lancet from its humble nineteenth-century beginnings to its current status as one of the most prestigious medical journals. By examining the Lancet's early years and the hopes of founding editor Thomas Wakely and his successors, I aim to reveal what distinguished this journal from others circulating at the time and guaranteed its longevity. Despite fierce competition with several early medical journals, including the British Medical Journal and a quack publication that called itself the Anti-Lancet, the Lancet continued to publish research-based information to instruct the medical community far and wide. Indeed, while fake news and anti-vaxers might seem like twenty-first-century problems, this paper shows how the Lancet has been addressing misinformation for two hundred years.