Jornal Brasileiro de Pneumologia: 40 years of tradition

398 For humans, turning forty is almost a cause for despair, because it signals the end of youth as well as a less brilliant future. For a medical journal, however, 40 years of existence means that it has had a satisfactory history, and that, more importantly, it will have an increasingly bright future. The Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology (BJP), which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, stands out today for a number of reasons, chief among which is that it disseminates research conducted by Brazilian and international experts. This internationalization reflects the maturity and dissemination power of the Journal. One important contribution to that internationalization, as well as to attracting researchers working in Brazil, was our acceptance for indexing by LILACS, PubMed/MEDLINE, and other databases. The online publication of all articles, in Portuguese and in English (in-house translation by the BJP), in parallel with the publication of a print version, in Portuguese, English, or Spanish, depending on the language of submission, is an invaluable achievement and confers considerable prestige. Changing the name of our Journal from the Jornal de Pneumologia (Journal of Pulmonology) to the Jornal Brasileiro de Pneumologia (Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology) undoubtedly made a considerable contribution to the prestige it currently enjoys. Another truly important aspect of the BJP is that, unlike many publications, its online version is available for free. It therefore differs from other scientific journals in that it is not a source of revenue for the professional society that sponsors it—in our case the Brazilian Thoracic Association. This is clearly an important contribution to medical knowledge, with obvious advantages for patients, distinguishing our Journal from those that charge a fee for viewing an article. The greatness of the BJP reflects the fact that numerous initial difficulties were surmounted, many by progress in general and other by advances in the field of information technology. For example, I remember that the government financed the publication of our Journal by providing an annual stipend, which was constantly devalued by inflation, and that we were prohibited from investing those funds. The reporting of expenditures was an onerous chore, given that even postage stamps had to be accounted for (a point of curiosity: a few years after leaving the BJP, I was fined by the tax authority because R$3.00, which is currently equivalent to less than US$1.00, had not been accounted for). This nuisance ended when we began to purchase a …