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• 90 years ago
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90 years ago 

Ninety years ago, the C.V. Mosby Company launched a new venture, The Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine; the original volume, edited by Dr. Warren Vaughan, spanned the period from autumn of 1915 to 1916. Thirty years later, Mosby entered into an agreement with the Central Society for Clinical Research, whereby the Journal became the Society’s official publication (effective with the January, 1947, issue).

In the last thirty years, the growth of subspecialty societies has challenged those of us who believe we have a lot to learn from those outside of our own narrow disciplines. How do we maintain our nurturing role toward young investigators, if that function is increasingly worked within a subspecialty context? How do we attract good manuscripts to our publications, if young investigators perceive a subspecialty-journal publication as more advantageous? Indeed, how do we ensure that at least a few of our young investigators retain a broad enough vision to spot parallel trends in different areas of research?

In response to this concern, the Central Society has for the last two years recognized that there are disciplines that by their very nature cross subspecialty boundaries, and we have made one such area—translational medicine—a focus of our interest and of our journal. That focus will become more explicit as the new editorial staff takes over with the July, 2006, issue … including a change in the presentation of the title.

As we look forward to new times, a new look and new editorial leadership, it’s also fun to look back at our origins. The cover illustration this month is Page 1, Volume 1 of The Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Research. (Also reproduced below is the Journal’s original logotype, as it appeared in the first twenty or more volumes.^⁎)

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• ⁎ Unfortunately, all of the copies of Volume 1 that I have located were bound without covers, so this image is actually scanned from a copy a few years into the Journal’s history.