Journal Of Clinical Investigation Research Articles

History of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, 1909-1959.

Edited by William B. Bean, M.D.* Philip Bondy, the present editor, and Mrs. Ellen R. Brainard of the editorial staff of the thirty-five-year-old<i>Journal of Clinical Investigation</i>have taken the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the parent organization, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, to review its history up to now and to search out the reasons for its formation and the purposes and ideals to which its founders dedicated themselves and its members subscribe. Those interested in the present explosive growth of medical research in the United States, who wonder if the forced feeding of this healthy but necessarily delicate plant will make it outgrow its essential nutritional elements of well-trained and imaginative investigators, will find this story fascinating. There is a tradition that the "Young Turks" arose because younger people in clinical medicine were dissatisfied with the Association of American Physicians. This group, "the"

YOUNG TURKS-OLD TURKS

IT IS gratifying to discover that sophistication in clinical investigation, which is almost synonymous with academic medicine, does not necessarily scorn the romantic. At least the emotional tropism that draws us to an institution or to an organization may be powerful enough to counteract any stigma of sentimentalism when one is assigned the honor of assembling the chronicles of such an organization, so that the present will not forget the past. In a recent issue of the<i>Journal of Clinical Investigation</i>(special issue,<b>38</b>:1783-1878, Oct. [pt. 2] 1959), a special supplement edited by Ellen R. Brainard was devoted exclusively to a recounting of significant events in the formation, early days of struggle, and rapid development of a coterie of clinical investigators into a community of scholars known as the American Society for Clinical Investigation— the Young Turks. The person responsible for the idea was Dr. Samuel J. Meltzer, Russian-born

The Laboratory Bookshelf

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