Journal of pineal research
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By means of teledischarge techniques from the database MEDLINE we selected those documents that contained in their title one or several of the following descriptors: pineal*, epiphys*, or melatonin*, in addition to the descriptor pineal-body in the MESH (Medical Subject Headings) section. A total of 7,617 original documents published between 1966 and 1994 were extracted that dealt with any aspect related with the pineal gland or its main secretary product, melatonin. The main bibliometric laws were applied: Price's Law on the increase in scientific literature, Bradford's Law on the dispersion of the scientific literature, and Lotka's Law on the author's productivity. ⋯ The average number of authors per paper has changed from 2.29 in 1966 to 3.85 in 1994. The most productive country (during the interval between 1988-1994) was USA (PaI = 30.6), followed by Japan (7.15), United Kingdom (6.45), Germany (6.37), France (6.26), Italy (6.15) and Spain (5.34). Of the total number articles published, 86.9% are in English.