Nathaniel Chapman was the only begetter of the _American Journal of the Medical Sciences_, which, in its seventy years of history, has known the touch of so many skilful editorial hands. Chapman issued it as a quarterly from the publishing house of M. Carey and Son. It was then called the _Philadelphia Journal of the Medical Sciences_.
In 1825 Dr. Williams P. Dewees and John D. Godman were associated with Dr. Chapman in the editorship. Dr. Isaac Hays was added to the staff in February, 1827, and in November the name of the magazine was changed to the _American Journal of the Medical Sciences_, and Dr. Isaac Hays became sole editor, to be in turn succeeded by his son, Dr. I. Minis Hays. The history of its changes and extension would take us far beyond the chronological boundary of this book. Nearly every physician of note in America has contributed at some time to its pages, and nearly every notable triumph of American medicine has found fitting record somewhere in its multitudinous numbers.
The _Reformer_ was a monthly religious and ethical publication issued in 1820.
Robert S. Coffin, who had written popular verses under the name of the "Boston Bard" while a compositor in the office of the _Village Record_, at West Chester, Pa., came to Philadelphia in 1821 and began a literary paper, which he called the _Bee_. Not more than two hundred subscribers were secured, and Coffin sold the unsuccessful paper to Charles Alexander, who had formerly been employed upon Poulson's _Daily Advertiser_. On the 4th of August, 1821, Atkinson and Alexander, in the office once occupied by Benjamin Franklin, back of No. 53 Market Street, began the publication of the Philadelphia _Saturday Evening Post_. T. Cottrell Clarke was appointed editor. He retired in 1826 and founded the _Ladies' Album_, a weekly literary paper, which ultimately merged into the _Pennsylvania Inquirer_. Morton McMichael succeeded Clarke in the editorial chair of the _Post_, and, when he too resigned, became the first editor of the _Saturday Courier_. Other editors of the _Post_ at various times were Benjamin Mathias, founder of the _Saturday Chronicle_, Charles J. Peterson, Rufus W. Griswold, H. Hastings Weld and Henry Peterson. The _Post_ had few important rivals among the family newspapers and it absorbed a number of the young literary journals. The _Saturday News_, the _Saturday Bulletin_ and the _Saturday Chronicle_ were merged into the _Post_. Mrs. Henry Wood's early novels, written in her obscure days before the time of "East Lynne," were published in it.