THE JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY

Abstract

On the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of this Journal it seems appropriate to review its history and to assess its contribution to the development of our branch of science.At the turn of the century biochemistry hardly existed as an independent discipline.Organic chemists had for many years been studying the properties and constitution of carbon compounds elaborated by living organisms, but their attention to the chemical processes involved in the formation, function and fate of such compounds was more speculative than experimental.As t,hc need for accurat.eknowledge of the chemistry of vit,al processes for the interpretation of physiological observations became increasingly acut,e, investigators in the medical sciences sporadically engaged in chemical research or, more frequently, enlisted the active interest of specialists in chemistry.This was t.he situation when, in 1995, Christian A. Herter and John J. Abel, the professors of pharmacology in the respective medical schools of Columbia and Johns Hopkins Universities, conceived and implemented the establishment of this Journal, and assumed the responsibility of edit<ing it.They were soon joined by A. Newton Richards as assistant editor.In 1909, aft.er five volumes had been published, Abel relinquished his active editorial duties in order to devote all of his available time to t.he inaugura-

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