Abstract

Abstract This article investigates the quantitative and qualitative evolution of debate‐creating (DEB) vs. accounting (ACC) references in 90 French medical articles published between 1810 and 1995. My findings suggest that nineteenth‐century French academic writing tends to be more polemical or oppositional than cooperative by contrast to its twentieth‐century counterpart. These results suggest that the debate‐creating vs. accounting opposition could be a rhetorical universal of referential behavior in medical literature.