What is Medline?

MEDLINE is the online database of the United States National Library of Medicine, the largest medical library in the world.

MEDLINE contains more than 16 million excerpts from biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 other countries. Most of its articles are written for doctors. The average person may have difficulty understanding them without assistance. But the articles offer highly specialized and detailed information about most medical conditions.

This online database provides article references, as well as short summaries (abstracts) of each study, free of charge to people around the world via the Internet.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) was founded in 1836, and is located in Bethesda, Md. at the National Institutes of Health. The NLM is a free service funded by U.S. tax dollars.