Every BMJ article published since the journal's first issue is now available online. This archive includes papers by James Simpson, who discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform; Alice Stewart, who investigated leukaemia and prenatal x-rays; Richard Doll, who first identified smoking as an important cause of cancer and other diseases; and the nurse reformer Florence Nightingale.

If you visit the advanced search page and go to the "Limit Results" field, you can set the search to trawl all content dating back to October 1840. The specialty collections section also includes all articles dating back to 1840. The print issue archive lower down this page enables you to browse every print issue of the BMJ.