During the severe paper shortage of the First World War there was strong political and economic pressure in both the United States and Britain to combine the journals. Each medical specialty formed a single “national” journal for that specialty, in order to save paper. The British did it in ophthalmology with the resultant establishment of the British Journal Of Ophthalmology .

Edward Jackson tried a similar strategy in the US. He organized the Ophthalmic Publishing Company representing the ownership of the Ophthalmic Year Book, Ophthalmic Literature (both AOS publications), Ophthalmic Records, Annals Of Ophthalmology, Annals De Oftalmologia , and Ophthalmology (the latter apparently unrelated to today’s Ophthalmology ). However, Arnold Knapp, who succeeded his father as editor of the Archives Of Ophthalmology , resisted the pressure put on him to join the group. He believed he must perpetuate the name of the journal his father founded. Later, of course, he moved it under the AMA where it’s retained its name for another 75 years until Howard Bauchner changed it to JAMA Ophthalmology .

During the Second World War, I participated along with other kids in going from door-to-door collecting old newspapers and magazines for the war effort. Librarians are familiar with the poor quality paper that was used for publications during that time. Apparently the situation was even worse during the First World War. (With electronic publishing this shouldn’t be a problem in future wars.)

Submitted by Dan Albert MD from the Cogan Ophthalmic History Society