Half a Century of Medical History

Medical History, the first British journal devoted to the subject, was begun in 1957 under the editorship of William J Bishop, who had been the Librarian of the then Wellcome Historical Medical Library until 1953. Published by William Dawson, its cover stated that it was the official organ of the Cambridge University History of Medicine Society, The Norwegian Society for the History of Medicine, The Scottish Society of the History of Medicine, and the Osler Club of London. When many smaller societies came together under the umbrella of the British Society of the History of Medicine, it became instead that society’s official journal. Whether this designation involved more than the reporting of society meetings was never entirely clear, and its disappearance from the title page in 1974 provoked considerable controversy. While allowing Editors an enviable freedom of action, the absence of any direct link with membership in a society was always a source of financial worry, even with the generous support of the Wellcome Trust. The agreement that from 2006Medical History would be the official journal of the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health will, it is hoped, allow the journal to flourish in the new world of electronic publishing. Indeed, from 2005 all issues of the journal, now fully the responsibility of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, are available online via PubMed Central. The list of Editors and Assistant Editors suggests a remarkable degree of continuity. No€el Poynter, assisted by Sue Goldie until 1965, took over after Bishop’s death in 1961, and when he retired as Director of the Wellcome Institute in 1973, he was succeeded by Edwin Clarke, who was determined to bring new standards of professionalism into the writing of medical history. In 1980 Bill Bynum and Vivian Nutton began the tradition of having two editors with varied interests and specialities. Anne Hardy took over from the latter in 2000, and Harold Cook from Bynum in 2002. But the hard work of running the day-to-day work of the journal falls upon the Assistant Editor. Jean Runciman served loyally from 1966 to 1987, and, when her successor, Christine Stevenson, left to become a university lecturer in History of Art in 1991, Caroline Tonson-Rye took over. All contributors, and readers, have reason to be grateful to them for their care and precision in correcting proofs, and for their friendly efficiency in dealing with all the hitches that can occur in the editorial process. The Editors also are aware of how much they owe to the management skills of their Assistants. Obvious changes have been few. There have been four types of cover design, moving from orange and cream with a logo, to a plain orange, to cream with a logo, and now to cream with a varying image. These changes have overlapped with changes of printer. Originally with Jarrolds, Medical History was printed from 1966 until 1984 by a firm