American X-Ray Journal

The American X-Ray Journal was the first radiology journal in the United States. Its first issue was published in May 1897, its founder and first editor was an American physician Heber Robarts (1852-1922), who took an early keen interest in the new Roentgen rays. Robarts was also a co-founder of the Roentgen Society of the United States, the forerunner of the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS).

In its earliest days the journal struggled to attract any important articles as the majority of the pioneering researchers in the fledgling field of x-rays would prefer to see their work published in the established medical journals.

The initial subscription rate for the new journal was one dollar per annum (payable in advance) or two dollars for overseas subscribers. Alternatively, it was ten cents per issue, or twenty cents for readers outside the US.

In 1902, Harry Preston Pratt, an American physician from Chicago with an interest in electrotherapy, purchased the American X-Ray Journal from Dr Robarts.

In 1904, the American X-Ray Journal subsumed the Archives of Electrology and Radiology (which had previously been the American Electro-Therapeutic and X-Ray Era). Following this, the journal was re-named and re-focused as the American Journal of Progressive Therapeutics, and this published its last edition in January 1906.