Ethics for Authors: A Case History of Acrosin

ETHICS FOR AUTHORS: A CASE HISTORY OF ACROSIN EDWARD F. HARTREE* Do but take care to expressyourselfin a plain, easy Manner, in well-chosen, significant and decent Terms and to give a harmonious and pleasing Turn to your Periods; study to explain your Thoughts, and set them in the truest Light, laboring as much aspossible, not to leave them dark nor intricate, but clear and intelligible. [Cervantes, preface to Don Quixote] "It's too late to correct it," said the Red Queen: "when you've once said a thing, thatfixes it, and you must take the consequences." I begin this homily with the assertion that references to published works on the same, or related subjects, are, with rare exceptions, essential components of a scientific paper. They provide, or should provide, justification for the paper's appearance, but in addition there may be a single reference which is ultimately of more value to the reader than the paper itself. Most authors take pains to describe their work accurately and with attention to detail. However, citations of references are too often incorrect; furthermore, expressed views on the contents of cited papers are too often based on the opinions of others rather than on study of the papers. Very common are errors of transcription—especially numerical errors in year, volume, and page. These arise during copying from journal to filing card, from card to successive drafts of a manuscript, and also after the final draft has left the author's hands. They are seemingly inescapable , and they can be a trap for the unwary. The writer of a letter to Nature [1] has described his endeavors to check the reference to a certain paper. While examining six publications in which that paper was cited he collected five (numerically) different versions of the reference. And one of the incorrect citations was made by the author ofthat certain paper. I could quote other examples, including errors in my own published papers , but this would make dull reading. My present hope is to be spared the embarrassment of finding imperfections in the reference list of this paper. ?Agricultural Research Council Unit of Reproductive Physiology and Biochemistry, 307 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 OJQ, United Kingdom. For the leavening that his words provide I thank the ghost of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, M.A. Oxon. 82 I Edward F. Hartree · Ethics for Authors "Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice. . . . When a paper appears in print, perhaps without blemish, there are still pitfalls ahead. Mis-citation by authors in a hurry, or by abstracting services, opens up a wider range of errors among which a few are the more memorable for being unwittingly funny. I refer to the spontaneous generation of ghost authors: that is, of fictitious names that may be doomed to circulate in the scientific literature. They are usually transcripts ofwording in a paper's heading; for example, an author's degree or other distinction. A certain M. A. Cantab is not unknown among dentists [2] while the material assistance of M.R.C. Path [3] in the raising of tumor antibodies has been recorded in the pages oìExcerpta Medica. Among these spectral savants there can be none more illustrious than O. Uplavici. His only known contribution to medical science, more precisely to amebic dysentery, brought him the distinction of an obituary notice in a leading scientific journal [4]. His remarkable story deserves retelling. In 1887 J. Hlava, professor of pathological anatomy in Prague, published in a Czech journal a note entitled "O úplavici. Pfedbézné sdélení" [On dysentery. Preliminary communication]. This paper was reviewed by S. Kartulis in volume 1 of Centralblattfür Bactériologie und Parasitenkunde (1887). The reviewer not only named the author as O. Uplavici but added verisimilitude by mentioning his correspondence with Uplavici. In the subject index to volume 1 the paper is credited to Hlava, Uplavici; in the author index, however, this becomes Hlava. But like the wraith of Hamlet's father this ghost was not easily laid. In later papers on amebiasis there occur references to O. Hlava, to the indeterminate O. Hlava (O. Uplavici), and even to Hlava and Uplavici as independent investigators of dysentery in cats. In 1905...