Abstract
To the Editor:
One of the seminal papers in the field of high-altitude medicine is “The Incidence, Importance, and Prophylaxis of Acute Mountain Sickness” (Hackett PH, Rennie D, Levine HD. Lancet. 1976;2:1149–1155). But who was Harry D. Levine? Most of the published references list the authors as Hackett and Rennie, leaving out Levine. This includes the current citation in PubMed (PMID 62991). Levine was the statistician at Cook County Hospital who helped the two other authors with the statistics.
Looking at the actual paper, one sees Hackett and Levine's names followed by 5 lines describing their affiliations. Levine's name sits below the 5 lines and lists his affiliation as Department of Surgery and Management, Cook County Hospital, Chicago, Illinois. This would be possible to overlook.
I stumbled across this error while reviewing a paper for Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. The paper I was reviewing had it right, which the lead author pointed out to me when I attempted to “correct” the reference list. See “Ginkgo biloba Decreases Acute Mountain Sickness in People Ascending to High Altitude at Ollagüe (3696 m) in Northern Chile” (Moraga FA, Flores A, Serra J, Esnaola C, Barriento C) in this issue. The reference librarian at the Alaska Health Sciences Information Services has offered to help correct the listing in PubMed.