SPECIAL EDITORIALS
JAGS Comes of Age: 50 Volumes Worth!
he American Geriatrics Society (AGS) was organized
on June 11, 1942, at the Hotel Brighton in Atlantic
Thomas T. Yoshikawa, MD
Martin Luther King, Jr./Charles R. Drew University of
Medicine and Science
T
City, New Jersey. Meetings of the AGS were conducted
annually at different major cities in the United States. At
or around the ninth annual session of AGS, the Society
voted to have its own journal. It was decided to begin pub-
Los Angeles, California
Editor, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
January 2002
1
lishing on or after January 1, 1953. Each member was
REFERENCES
1
charged $7.50 per year for the journal, with the total dues
for AGS being $15.00 annually. The publisher would be
The Williams and Wilkins Company of Baltimore, Mary-
land.
. Thewlis MF. History of the American Geriatrics Society. J Am Geriatr Soc
1953;1:3–8.
With the publishing of this January 2002 issue, the
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (affectionately
and simply called JAGS) has reached a milestone of 50 vol-
umes of outstanding papers on cutting-edge clinical research
in geriatrics; state-of-the-art reviews on pathophysiology,
diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of health problems of
old age; innovative approaches to and models of health-
care delivery for the older population; education and
training issues for a variety of health disciplines; editorials
by leading experts in the field of aging; in-depth reviews of
relevant geriatric literature; and commentaries by the read-
ership of JAGS. In January 2003, JAGS will officially com-
plete 50 years of publication for the Society—the Journal’s
golden anniversary!
To help commemorate the publishing of the first issue
of the 50th volume of JAGS, we have invited editorial
comments from three of the most recent editors of the
Journal, Dr. Gene Stollerman, Dr. David Solomon, and
Dr. William Applegate. Dr. Paul Beeson, the most senior
of the recent editors, was unable to submit an editorial for
health reasons. However, he conveyed to the editorial of-
fice his “best wishes and congratulations” to the Journal.
As part of my editorial, I am reproducing excerpts of
the editorial written by the first editor of JAGS, Dr. Wil-
lard O. Thompson, in the January 1953 issue. In addition,
the table of contents of the January 1953 issue is re-
printed. Throughout the rest of this year, we are planning
to reprint all seven of the clinical papers published in the
January 1953 issue and to invite a leading expert to pro-
vide an editorial commentary on the topic and how the
field has evolved since 1953. I hope the readers of JAGS
and members of the AGS will take great pride in the
growth and maturation of the Journal into the leading
publication in geriatrics. It is only through your continued
support and the hard work and commitment of past great
editors, associate editors, editorial board members, and
referees/reviewers that such an achievement could be real-
ized. The editor and editorial staff of JAGS thank you!
Aging Comes of Age
The Modern Concept of Geriatrics
Everyone hopes to live to a ripe old age in a state of good
health. People have been growing old for a long time, but
it is only in recent years that the breadth and scope of the
problems presented by the aging population have been rec-
ognized. Life expectancy at birth has increased for a vari-
ety of reasons including reduction in infant mortality, im-
provement in medical care in general, control of many
infectious diseases, improved nutrition, and others. It is es-
timated that by 1975 there will be between 17 and 20 mil-
lion people in this country 65 years of age and over.
While life expectancy at birth has been greatly in-
creased since 1900, life expectancy at the age of 65 has
been increased only slightly. Therefore, two serious prob-
lems must be faced—the care of the aging population and
a concentrated attack on the causes of aging so that ways
and means of increasing the life expectancy of people who
have reached the age of 65 years may be discovered.
Geriatrics presents a great variety of problems and
must be looked upon from the broadest possible point of
view. The care of older people concerns physicians in
practically every special field of medicine as well as the
general practitioner, who probably sees more older people
than the specialist. Even the pediatrician may find himself
interested in the problem because as patients are followed
from birth to old age, various causes of aging may be dis-
covered in infancy and childhood.
Studies of causes of aging and attempts to improve the
medical care of older people must be correlated with de-
velopments in all other fields which contribute to the wel-
fare of the aging population. Attention must be focused on
economic status, housing, personnel problems particularly
with regard to the age of retirement, rehabilitation, and
improvement in nursing care. There should be close coop-
JAGS 50:1–2, 2002
©
2002 by the American Geriatrics Society
0002-8614/02/$15.00