Annals' 70th Anniversary: A Look Back and a Look Ahead

With this issue, Annals marks its 70th anniversary. In a 1977 essay honoring the journal's 50th anniversary [1], former editor Edward Huth and our current Executive Editor Kathleen Case looked back at a journal that, in the 1930s, was published monthly; had only a few thousand readers; cost only $7.00 for a year's subscription; and received only about 235 manuscripts a year, mostly from the members of the American College of Physicians. Those first 50 years produced many of the journal's enduring features, including two of particular importance that were introduced by then editor J. Russell Elkinton: peer review in 1960 (a short 37 years ago!) and a “Letters and Comments” section in the late 1960s.

In the past 20 years, Annals has continued to grow as an independent general journal in a sea of ever-more-subspecialized publications. Now published twice monthly, its readership stands at over 96 000; it costs more than $100 for a year's subscription; and it receives more than 2400 manuscripts a year, one third from outside the United States-all surely signs of our times. Annals continues to publish …