The Wisconsin Medical Journal: year one: 1903.

Journal exists today because two Milwaukee physicians had both keen business acumen and political savvy. Whether out of envy at a colleague’s journal, simple competitive instincts, pure desire for professional excellence, or some of each, they launched the Wisconsin Medical Journal as a private business venture in January 1903. Arthur J. Patek, MD, an internist, and Otto H. Foerster, MD, a dermatologist, were both native to Milwaukee. They graduated medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1892 and 1898, respectively. In forming the Journal, Patek was editor and Foerster, associate editor. In a wise political move, they involved a band of 20 professional brethren whom they called “collaborators,” whose lives and medical practices intertwined their own. The collaborators were also financial backers of the Journal venture, thus providing some measure of truth to the masthead’s declaration that the Journal was “owned by and devoted to the interests of the Medical Profession of this State.” These collaborators were an interesting lot. Almost all were professional heavyweights in medical practice or public health around the state. Six were “provisional” councilors in the reorganized State Medical Society of Wisconsin (Society) and seven had been or would be presidents of the Society between 1870 and 1909. At this time, Wisconsin physicians numbered about 2500. Only 700 were members of the Society. Back then, about 440 physicians practiced in Milwaukee at 10 hospitals. One of them, Walter H. Neilson, MD, president of the Milwaukee Medical College, owned and edited the three-yearold Milwaukee Medical Journal. Milwaukee hosted several medical societies, including the long dormant Medical Society of Milwaukee County. The largest and most influential was the Milwaukee Medical Society, later named the Milwaukee Academy of Medicine, and regarded by many as the birth-parent of the Wisconsin Medical Journal. Patek was a frequent presenter of scientific papers at the Milwaukee Medical Society’s meetings. He was interested in child health and committed to expanding Milwaukee’s already recognized emergence as a specialty medical center. He was a concert violinist, a collector of etchings, and a patron of Milwaukee’s growing arts community. Foerster had close friendships with many of the city’s leaders in business and industry, especially in the brewing, financial, and real estate sectors. Both hoped to turn the Milwaukee Medical Society, with its already huge medical library, into a midwestern version of the New York Academy of Medicine. They also wanted to create a hospital-laboratory-clinical center in Milwaukee The Wisconsin Medical Journal Year One: 1903