ABSTRACT
Ernest Hart, the son of a Jewish dentist, was born in Knightsbridge in or around 1835. He won prizes galore both at the City of London School and as a medical student at St Mary’s. High among Hart’s many achievements was the raising of Journal circulation and, as a consequence, of its advertising revenue. The simplest explanation for the British Medical Journal’s success under Hart is the high quality of its journalism. Hart also began to aim the Journal directly at specific medical interest groups such as army and navy surgeons, Poor Law medical officers and regional practitioners in Scotland and Ireland – all of whom were given their own columns. In terms of Journal content Williams placed less emphasis than Hart on medical politics and socio-medical campaigns. Hart himself visited north-eastern France in order to report on medical aspects of the Franco-Prussian War.
