Records of the Committee of Publication of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

The Committee of Publication of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia was first appointed on 2 November 1841, following a resolution of the College to publish a quarterly summary of its transactions, An earlier "Printing Committee" had existed to produce the first volume of College transactions in 1793. The Committee of Publication was charged with reporting all College transactions, communications, and discussions and preparing this material for publication. Various methods of publication were attempted before the College, following a controversy in 1874, determined to publish its own annual periodical, Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, as it had done in 1793.

By 1925, the committee was known as the "Committee on Publication"; it was empowered to secure copies of all papers and lectures of the College and its sections and employ a stenographer to report all scientific business and discussion. The 1935 revision of the College by-laws state simply that the committee's responsibility was to edit and publish the College transactions. In 1978, responsibility for editing and producing Transactions~ studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia had devolved upon the Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine, and, by 1984, the Committee on Publications, as it was then known, worked as a consultant body. Its responsibilities were assumed by the Committee on Program in 1990.