Celebrating 100 Years of the Journal

It is not often that the editor of a scientific journal has the privilege of participating in the celebration of the centennial anniversary of its birth. Reaching the milestone of 100 years of continuous publication is a rare accomplishment not only among scientific periodicals but in the wider publishing universe. Thus it is with great pride that I introduce this special commemorative issue of the Journal, which marks the 100th birthday of the podiatric profession’s first and most prominent research journal.

The first issue of Pedic Society Items, the Journal’s predecessor publication, bore the date January 1, 1907. It was launched and edited by Alfred Joseph, who would become the first president of the National Association of Chiropodists, the forerunner of the American Podiatric Medical Association, in 1912. Its evolution into what we now know as JAPMA is a long, fascinating story with many twists and turns and related title changes. I summarized this history in an editorial published in the January/February 2007 issue. A more detailed version is presented in this issue by David Zych, editor emeritus of the APMA News, who was an APMA employee for more than one-third of the Journal’s life and used archival resources as well as interviews with former editors to discover the full story.

To mark this occasion, the current and former editors of JAPMA, as well as members of the Journal’s Editorial Advisory Board and Board of Contributing Editors, have identified 14 articles published over the course of the Journal’s history that might be termed “classics” of the profession. This was quite an undertaking, requiring a review of 100 years’ worth of tables of contents! These articles are reprinted here, each with a brief commentary by a contemporary in the field. The articles range from a discussion of the foot problems of US soldiers during World War I, published in 1917, to a description of Charcot foot that appeared in 1989. Although many significant articles have been published since then, we decided to stop with the decade beginning in 1990 because many readers will be familiar with the recent literature, and our primary aim was to show the progress of the profession over the entire century of publishing history. The task of winnowing down the original list of suggested articles to meet our space limitations was difficult, and it should be understood that this was a subjective process driven by individuals with their own particular interests and opinions. The ultimate goal was to identify papers that were especially representative of their time period, early writings of “giants” in the history of the profession, or earliest reports of commonly accepted procedures or techniques.

We have reproduced the articles with their original formatting and typography, and in many cases we were able to include with the commentary an image of the cover of the issue in which the article originally appeared. This gives a sense of how the Journal’s appearance has evolved along with its content. For readers who will attend the APMA Annual Scientific Meeting in Philadelphia in August, a special exhibit is being planned that will trace the evolution of the Journal from its humble beginnings to the present and will include additional images and information from the archives.

I thank all of the commentators for their muchappreciated contributions to this special issue. Thanks are due as well to all those who recommended articles to reprint, and to the former JAPMA editors and others who provided information for the introductory historical article. Since its birth, the Journal has been a cornerstone of the development of the field of podiatric medicine. As we celebrate this milestone in the history of the Journal and of the profession, we look back with pride in our progress, which has given us a firmer foundation on which to build our future than could ever have been imagined by our founding fathers.