Abstract
To be appointed Editor of the Journal of Medical Biography – only the third since the journal’s print inception in 1993 – is both a great honour and a daunting prospect.
In the inaugural editorial, John Moll hoped the Journal would ‘provide food for intellectual curiosity, scope for rigorous scholarship’ by publishing papers on ‘medical figures felt to be legendary, outstanding or otherwise significant for distinguished or definitive work; and also… on those less well known, but whose lives – or aspects of whose lives – provide material of interest’. 1 Standing down 10 years later, at the end of 2002, he could reflect on a Journal with an international audience extending well beyond clinicians to ‘scientists, historians and archivists, librarians and others with an interest in medical history focused on biography’. He was also bullish about the Journal’s future: ‘This would seem to be limitless’, because of continuing interest in established figures in medical history and the continuing discovery of original materials. 2
Taking up the editorial reins in November 2002, Christopher Gardner-Thorpe noted of the Journal that ‘Generally space is in short supply’ and that because many papers were being submitted for publication ‘unavoidably some will be rejected but usually for reasons of space rather than lack of quality’.
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(Plus ça change plus c’est la même chose!) His 12-year tenure included piloting the transition in 2012–2013 from RSM Press to Sage Publishing.
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His philosophy of medical biography
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was summed up thus: Medical biography is a component of medical history. The aims of the study of medical history appear to be three in particular – it helps us to identify from the past those changes and failures that could lead us to a better future, it is an academic discipline and it should be fun. The journal aims to fulfil all three roles for its readers and its authors.
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These aspirations remain valid today. However, even a cursory reading of Hermione Lee’s book on biography 7 will give some pause for thought about the nature of the discipline of biography in general, which is equally applicable in the medical sphere. Biography is an unstable genre, an artificial cultural construct, which is always to some extent an index of its time. Clearly some factors, such as authenticity and verification, remain touchstones of good biography but interpretations change – there is no such thing as a definitive biography, all are temporary, partial, contingent. Thus, John Moll’s view of a limitless future for a Journal devoted to medical biography is correct, not only for the reasons aforementioned but also because medical lives and practices may be reappraised in each succeeding generation, with different emphases as biography and its methods evolve.
The Journal’s methods must evolve too. Online submission is now normative in academic publishing and will be adopted but not to the exclusion of writers more familiar with traditional methods, whose submissions to the Journal will continue to be welcomed. We also, as of this issue, have adopted a new cover design approved by the Editorial Board, which hopefully will enhance the visibility of the Journal.
To my immediate predecessor, Christopher Gardner-Thorpe, many thanks for your encouragement and support. Yours will be an impossible act to follow! I am delighted that you will be remaining on the Journal’s Editorial Board to give wise counsel to your successor.