Changing times for BJS

The observant reader may already have noticed not one, but two, very significant changes to this month’s issue of BJS. The first, as highlighted on the front cover, and elsewhere within the journal, is the incorporation of the European Journal of Surgery (EJS). EJS has a proud history, being the direct successor – in 1991 – of that distinguished publication Acta Chirurgica Scandinavica. Acta itself was formed in 1919 by the Swedish surgeon Einar Key from the previously published Archives of Scandinavian Medicine. BJS is now in its 90th year. It was founded in 1913 by Ernest William Hey Groves and Berkeley George Andrew Moynihan (Lord Moynihan); like EJS and Acta, BJS too has had a distinguished and successful history. In recent years it has acquired an increasingly international perspective, with special emphasis on continental Europe. It has the particular privilege of being specially related to the Association of Surgeons of the Netherlands as that prestigious organisation’s in-house journal. BJS incorporating EJS is also received by all members of the Swedish Surgical Society. The geographic subscriber base of the journal is shown in Fig. 1. It is obvious that an international readership finds the publication a worthwhile buy, with continental Europe in the lead in this respect. Over 80 per cent of journals sold in 2002 went to non-British subscribers. This international aspect is mirrored in the geographic source of our published articles. Fig. 2 shows that well over 60 per cent of papers in the 2002 volume came from a