Critical Reviews in Clinical Laboratory Sciences
暂无分享,去创建一个
above title appeared on the shelves of some university and hospital libraries. The numbers were not large, and the locations were predominantly in North America. Actually, the first sentence is not quite accurate, because what appears above was preceded by the letters CRC, the acronym of Chemical Rubber Company, based in Boca Raton, Florida, USA. The company was then a major force in chemistry, proud publisher of a series of handbooks that were holy writ to scientists in virtually all disciplines at the time and with which no working laboratory could be without. The journal in question was one of a whole series launched from the same source around the same time, differing in name only in the subject matter purported to be covered. This initiative was accompanied by a series of authoritative but expensive monographs in the biomedical field that were beyond the means of private individuals but highly sought after by these impecunious souls through their institutions that, in those halcyon days, were much better placed than they are today to respond to the extravagant whims of their constituents. This financial recklessness was compounded by the absence of sponsorship by scientific societies and by the fact that these journals refused to sully their pristine pages with anything that smelled of money, such as advertisements or announcements. CRC paid the eventual price, but in more ways than one. Apart from the publishers themselves, the founding fathers and joint editors were John W King, MD, PhD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and Willard R Faulkner, PhD, from Vanderbilt Medical Center. One has to admire their energy and vision. The very first issue (Vol 1, Pt 1 ) had no fewer than 192 pages and 15 “articles”. Seven of these were full reviews (the longest contained 46 pages and the shortest only five), and the remaining items were fillers of various sorts, including abstracts of future papers, a catalogue of clinical references, and a Classification of Standard Reagents for Enteroviruses. Gradually, these utilitarian distractions were phased out, and the content became restricted to full reviews, as the journal title demanded. The year of its birth coincided with a period of particularly explosive growth in the laboratory sciences, fuelled by earlier advances in the basic sciences, and there was a real need for something more insightful than a merely descriptive account of advances and new developments in the various fields. What was required was an expert and critical author who, by separating the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, and the ducks from the geese, could stand egalitarianism on its head, drawing attention to those papers and their respective authors whose work was most worthy of attention and emulation. This wishful thought has been fulfilled sufficiently often over the ensuing years to raise the journal to the pinnacle of its class in comparative awareness surveys. King and Faulkner, from the very beginning, introduced some important innovations that have stood the test of time. First of all, each author and his chosen topic were carefully selected and the subject of a personal invitation. Each paper was scrutinized by an expert referee in an open review process. The name of the referee appeared below that of the authors, and he was paid a token honorarium, but in many instances he received more than he had bargained for: credit as a coauthor of the paper. This practice is rampant throughout the early and middle periods of the journal in the electronic editions posted on the Informa website, but, fortunately, the PubMed abstracts have avoided this error. Neither do the dates of the various volumes always correspond between these sources and the printed version. Compilers of bibliographies should take heed. The table of contents included a synopsis (not a summary ) of the paper and a brief biography of the authors. The former has now evolved into the Statement of Significance, and authors must be judged by their present work without biographical knowledge of their past accomplishments. The second issue (Vol 1, Pt 2) leaned heavily in the direction of hematology, and, of the nine papers comprising Vol 1, Pt 3, no fewer than seven concerned various aspects of hemoglobin. The other disciplines within the laboratory sciences were more evenly distributed, and the authors, albeit exclusively from North America, were among the most renowned in their fields. In Vol 1, Pt 4, which brought the page count for the year to 684, the American monopoly was broken with three of the five papers coming wholly or in part from UK institutions. The following year, Vol 2 Critical Reviews in Clinical Laboratory Science, 2010; 47(1): 1–4