Acta Physiologica Scandinavica: The Complete Historical Journal Profile

Important Note: A Historical Title

Acta Physiologica Scandinavica is a ceased journal title — it is not an active, currently publishing journal. It was the name under which the journal now known as Acta Physiologica published from 1940 to 2005. In January 2006 the title was shortened to Acta Physiologica, which continues publication today under Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Scandinavian Physiological Society. This profile documents the historical Scandinavica era; researchers seeking the current journal should consult the Acta Physiologica profile.

Overview of the Historical Title

Acta Physiologica Scandinavica (Acta Physiol. Scand., abbreviated APS) was a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of physiology published from 1940 through December 2005. Its print ISSN was 0001-6772 and its CODEN was APSCAX (EVISA; library catalogs). The journal published in English (with some early volumes carrying French and German contributions, per library records) and was issued from Stockholm, initially by P. A. Norstedt & Söner, and in its later decades by Blackwell Scientific Publications of Oxford (library catalog records).

The journal ran from Volume 1, Number 1 (1940) to Volume 185, Number 4 (December 2005) — 185 volumes across 65 years of continuous publication (library catalog). Its final impact factor under the Scandinavica title was reported as approximately 2.55 (EVISA), and its last listed editor was J. Henriksson (EVISA).

Despite the title change, the journal's publishing lineage is unbroken: Acta Physiologica Scandinavica succeeded Skandinavisches Archiv für Physiologie (1889–1939) and was succeeded by Acta Physiologica (2006–present), with continuous volume numbering throughout. Citation databases generally treat the three eras as a single publication history.

History: Six and a Half Decades as Scandinavica

The Scandinavica era began in 1940, when the Skandinavisches Archiv für Physiologie — founded in 1889 — was renamed Acta Physiologica Scandinavica. The renaming adopted the Acta convention then spreading through European scientific publishing and asserted the journal's identity as the organ of Scandinavian physiology. The timing, at the outbreak of World War II, meant the journal's early Scandinavica years unfolded under extraordinarily difficult conditions for international scientific communication; that it maintained publication throughout is a testament to the resilience of the Scandinavian physiological community.

In the postwar decades the journal became the principal international outlet for Scandinavian physiology — carrying the classic literature of the region's muscle-physiology, exercise-physiology, cardiovascular and renal research schools. Through the late twentieth century it was published by Blackwell (later Wiley-Blackwell) of Oxford, giving it professional international distribution while retaining its Stockholm editorial identity.

The journal also published a substantial Supplementum series — numbered supplements from 1 (1940) through 648 (2002), carrying the ISSN 0302-2994 — which published congress abstracts, symposia proceedings and doctoral dissertations, including abstracts of the Scandinavian Congresses of Physiology and Pharmacology and various Nordic congress proceedings (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology library catalog).

In January 2006, beginning with Volume 186, the journal was renamed Acta Physiologica, dropping Scandinavica to reflect its evolution into a journal with European and global ambitions and its new role as the official journal of the Federation of European Physiological Societies (FEPS). The Scandinavica title thus closed with Volume 185 in December 2005.

Scope During the Scandinavica Era

Throughout its 1940–2005 run, the journal published original contributions to physiology and related sciences — the same broad remit it carries today. Its pages covered cardiovascular physiology, renal physiology, neurophysiology, muscle and exercise physiology, endocrinology, and cellular physiology, with the translational and human-physiology emphasis that characterized Scandinavian physiology.

The journal was an important forum for Scandinavian and international physiologists alike; by its final decades it was thoroughly international in authorship while retaining its editorial base in Scandinavia. Its scope statement in the later years was essentially identical to that of its successor: high-quality original research in physiology and related areas by authors from all over the world.

Indexing and Abstracting (Historical)

During its publication life, Acta Physiologica Scandinavica was indexed in the major biomedical and life-science services of its era. EVISA's journal database lists the following indexing for the title:

• MEDLINE
• Science Citation Index
• Current Contents
• SCOPUS
• EMBASE / Excerpta Medica
• Biological Abstracts / BIOSIS Previews
• Chemical Abstracts
• CAB Abstracts
• Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews
• Calcium and Calcified Tissue Abstracts
• Derwent Biotechnology Abstracts
• Biobase and other abstract journals

This comprehensive indexing is why the Scandinavica-era literature remains fully discoverable today: papers published as Acta Physiol. Scand. are retrievable through PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus exactly like current-journal articles.

Metrics of the Historical Title

Metric values for the ceased title are historical snapshots and should not be confused with the current journal's metrics:

• Final impact factor (under the Scandinavica title): approximately 2.55 (EVISA).
• Earlier impact factor: approximately 1.496 in one older listing (directory snapshot) — illustrating the journal's growth over its final decade.
• Volumes: 1 (1940) through 185 (2005).
• Supplements: 648 numbered supplements, 1940–2002 (ISSN 0302-2994).

The current journal's metrics (impact factor ~5.6–5.7, CiteScore ~10.6, h-index ~135) reflect the combined 1889–present lineage including the Scandinavica era's citation record. The growth from ~1.5 to ~2.55 during the title's final years, and the subsequent rise under the shortened title, traces a continuous arc of increasing influence.

The Archive: Accessing Scandinavica-Era Papers

The complete 1940–2005 archive is maintained within Wiley's online journal archive as part of the continuing Acta Physiologica title — the publisher treats the title change as a continuation, not a new journal, so Volume 1 (1940) through Volume 185 (2005) are browsable alongside current content. Library holdings worldwide carry the print run under ISSN 0001-6772, and the supplement series under ISSN 0302-2994.

Researchers citing this era's papers should use the Acta Physiol. Scand. abbreviation (ISO 4) with the CODEN APSCAX. A thorough literature search in physiology should query all three of the lineage's abbreviations — Skand. Arch. Physiol., Acta Physiol. Scand., and Acta Physiol. — since databases index each era under its contemporary title.

Why the Title Changed

The January 2006 renaming was driven by the journal's institutional evolution. As the designated official journal of FEPS — representing physiological societies across more than 30 European countries — a specifically Scandinavian title had become geographically misleading. The shorter Acta Physiologica positioned the journal as a European and international title while preserving the Acta heritage and the volume-numbering continuity. The Scandinavian Physiological Society retained ownership, so the change was one of branding and ambition, not of publisher or editorial control.

Relationship to the Current Journal

To be explicit: Acta Physiologica Scandinavica did not cease publication in the sense of folding — it was renamed. Its editorial office, publisher relationship, volume numbering, indexing and citation record all continued seamlessly into Acta Physiologica. Authors who published in the journal in 2005 found themselves publishing in the same journal under a shorter name in 2006. The distinction matters for librarians, archivists and citation analysts, who must map the title change correctly, but for working scientists the lineage is one continuous journal.

Key Facts at a Glance

• Historical title: Acta Physiologica Scandinavica
• Abbreviation: Acta Physiol. Scand. (APS)
• Status: Ceased as a title — renamed Acta Physiologica in January 2006 (not a defunct journal; publication continues)
• Publication run: 1940–2005 (Volumes 1–185)
• Predecessor: Skandinavisches Archiv für Physiologie (1889–1939)
• Successor: Acta Physiologica (2006–present)
• ISSN: 0001-6772 (supplements: 0302-2994)
• CODEN: APSCAX
• Publishers: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, Stockholm (early); Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (later years)
• Frequency: Monthly
• Language: English
• Final impact factor: ~2.55 (historical snapshot)
• Final editor (per EVISA): J. Henriksson

The 1940 Renaming in Context

The transformation of the Skandinavisches Archiv für Physiologie into Acta Physiologica Scandinavica in 1940 was part of a wider movement in European scientific publishing. The Latin Acta ("proceedings" or "records") title format — already used by journals such as Acta Chemica Scandinavica and the various Acta titles of Eastern Europe — signaled a modern, internationally oriented identity. For a journal emerging from a German-language archive tradition, the new name also marked a linguistic pivot: while the Archiv had published substantially in German, the Scandinavica era would be overwhelmingly English-language, aligning the journal with the postwar ascendancy of English as the language of science.

The timing could hardly have been more dramatic. Renaming a journal in 1940, as Europe descended into war, was an act of institutional confidence — a declaration that Scandinavian science would maintain its international connections whatever the political circumstances. The Scandinavian countries' neutrality (Sweden) and occupations (Denmark, Norway) made those years extraordinarily difficult, yet the journal's volume numbering shows no interruption: Volume 1 appeared in 1940 and the sequence ran unbroken to Volume 185 in 2005.

The Supplementum Series: A Journal Within a Journal

One of the most distinctive features of the Scandinavica era was its Supplementum series — 648 numbered supplements published between 1940 and 2002 under ISSN 0302-2994. These supplements functioned as a parallel publication channel for material that did not fit the monthly journal's format:

• Congress abstracts — including abstracts of the Scandinavian Congresses of Physiology and Pharmacology, the Nordic Congresses for Physiology and Pharmacology, and related meetings, preserving a record of what was presented at the gatherings that structured the Scandinavian research community.
• Symposia proceedings — such as the Pharmacia Symposia and CFN (Swedish Central Animal Experimentation Board) symposia, which captured focused scientific discussions in citable form.
• Doctoral dissertations — including Linköping University medical dissertations, giving thesis work a formal publication venue.
• Sleep congress and specialty proceedings — such as the International Sleep Congress materials published through the supplement series.

For historians of physiology, the supplement series is a goldmine: it documents not just published findings but the live scientific discourse of the Scandinavian community — who presented what, where, and when — across six decades. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology's library catalog, which meticulously records the supplement run from 1 (1940) to 648 (2002), is one of the best bibliographic witnesses to this remarkable series.

The Golden Age: Scandinavian Physiology in the Scandinavica Pages

The Scandinavica era coincides almost exactly with the golden age of Scandinavian physiology — the period when the region's research schools achieved world leadership in several fields. Readers of the 1940–2005 archive encounter the primary literature of transformative research programs:

Muscle and exercise physiology. The Scandinavian muscle-physiology tradition — built around biopsy techniques, exercise testing and metabolic measurement — published its foundational papers in these pages. The journal was the natural home for work emerging from the great exercise-physiology laboratories of Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo.

Cardiovascular and renal physiology. Blood pressure regulation, sympathetic nervous system function, kidney hemodynamics and fluid balance were perennial strengths, reflecting the clinical-physiological orientation of Scandinavian medical research.

Neurophysiology. From spinal cord mechanisms to autonomic regulation, the journal carried the Scandinavian contribution to twentieth-century neuroscience.

This concentration of excellence is part of why the journal's citation record remained strong enough to support its later growth: the Scandinavica archive contains papers that are still cited today as classic references.

Publishers Across the Eras

The journal's publishing arrangements evolved with the industry. The early Scandinavica volumes were published in Stockholm by P. A. Norstedt & Söner, a venerable Swedish publishing house — library catalogs record "Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1940–2005" as the publication statement, with the note that publishers changed frequently ("Częste zmiany wydawców") and that Blackwell Scientific Publications of Oxford handled the journal in its later years. This trajectory — from a national publisher to an international science publisher — mirrors the journal's own evolution from a Scandinavian society organ to a global title.

Under Blackwell (and subsequently Wiley-Blackwell after the Wiley–Blackwell merger), the journal gained professional international marketing, online hosting and inclusion in the major aggregated journal packages — infrastructure that supported its rising impact factor in its final decade under the Scandinavica name (from ~1.5 to ~2.55) and its continued growth after the 2006 renaming.

Editorial Leadership at the Close

EVISA's journal database lists J. Henriksson as the editor at the end of the Scandinavica era. The editorial office remained Scandinavian throughout the title's run, preserving the journal's identity even as its publisher, distribution and authorship internationalized. The current editor of the successor title, Pontus B. Persson, leads a journal whose editorial DNA is directly continuous with the Scandinavica years.

Using the Archive Today

For working scientists, the practical questions are how to find and cite Scandinavica-era papers. The answers:

• Discovery: All 185 volumes are indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science and Scopus under the Acta Physiol. Scand. title. Searching the current journal's archive on Wiley's platform retrieves the full 1940–2005 run alongside post-2006 content.
• Citation format: Use Acta Physiol. Scand. with volume numbers 1–185 (1940–2005). Example: Acta Physiol. Scand. 1980;110(2):219–221.
• Supplements: Cite as Acta Physiol. Scand. Suppl. with the supplement number (1–648).
• Link resolvers: Library link resolvers generally map ISSN 0001-6772 to the continuing Wiley title, so institutional access to Acta Physiologica normally includes the Scandinavica archive.

A Title That Ended by Evolving

Acta Physiologica Scandinavica is unusual among ceased journal titles in that nothing actually ceased. The editorial operation, the publisher relationship, the volume numbering, the indexing, the citation record and the scholarly community all continued without interruption into Acta Physiologica. What ended in December 2005 was a name — a name that had served for 65 years and 185 volumes, carrying Scandinavian physiology from the war years through the molecular revolution.

The renaming honored that history even as it moved beyond it: the Acta was kept, the lineage was preserved in every database, and the journal's archive remains one of the great continuous records of twentieth-century physiology. For the history of science, the Scandinavica era stands as a case study in how a regional society journal can grow, internationalize and reinvent itself without losing its soul.

The Nordic Research Ecosystem and the Journal's Role

The Scandinavica era cannot be understood apart from the distinctive research ecosystem that sustained it. The Nordic countries built, in the postwar decades, a model of publicly funded, medically oriented basic research that was unusually productive per capita. Small, well-funded laboratories with strong clinical connections produced a steady stream of physiological findings, and Acta Physiologica Scandinavica was the designated outlet where that stream entered the international literature.

This ecosystem shaped the journal's editorial culture in lasting ways. Nordic physiology valued careful measurement, physiological relevance and clinical connection over fashionable novelty — an ethos visible in the journal's pages across all 65 years. Reviewers asked whether a finding was solid and whether it mattered for understanding the living organism, not whether it would make headlines. That culture of substance over flash survived the 2006 renaming and remains one of the current journal's defining traits.

The journal also benefited from the Nordic tradition of doctoral education, in which the PhD thesis — often published as a supplement or as a series of journal papers — was a substantial original contribution. The supplement series' inclusion of dissertations (such as the Linköping medical dissertations) formalized a pipeline from graduate research to citable publication that enriched the journal's contents.

Distinguishing This Title from Similarly Named Journals

The Acta naming tradition has produced several titles that are easily confused. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica (physiology, 1940–2005, ISSN 0001-6772) should not be confused with Acta Physiologiae Plantarum (plant physiology, 1978–present, ISSN 0137-5881) or with Acta Pathologica Microbiologica Scandinavica (a different Scandinavian Acta title in pathology and microbiology). The shared Scandinavica element reflects a common mid-century Scandinavian publishing convention, not any editorial relationship. ISSN and CODEN (APSCAX) uniquely identify this title.

Further Reading and Resources

The complete 1940–2005 archive of Acta Physiologica Scandinavica is accessible through Wiley Online Library as part of the continuing Acta Physiologica title — browsing the archive by volume retrieves Volumes 1 through 185 under the historical title. PubMed/MEDLINE indexes the full run under the Acta Physiol. Scand. abbreviation, making it straightforward to locate individual papers. Library catalogs — including the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology catalog record for the supplement series and the Polish academic library union catalog — provide detailed bibliographic documentation of the title's publication history and its 648 supplements. EVISA's journals database offers a concise structured record (ISSN 0001-6772, CODEN APSCAX, indexing list, final impact factor). Historians of physiology will find the supplement series, with its congress abstracts and proceedings, a particularly rich primary source for the development of Scandinavian physiology across six decades.