I have always been an advocate for a strong editorial letter in the first issue of any magazine.  It is essential to introduce the magazine to your audience and to ensure the fact that they understand its mission statement and the role it is going to play in their life.  Magazines that launch without such an introduction, to me, are a sign of laziness and lack of care of their audience.

What follows is the launch editorial of Digest Of Treatment that its first issue appeared on the nation’s newsstands in July 1937 and was aimed mainly at doctors.  Under the heading “We Begin,” the editorial went on to say, “First issues, to almost everyone, are an exciting curiosity. To the collectors, they have intrinsic value; to the critics, they have a dissecting table value; and to the editors, authors, and publishers, they have a deep sentimental value.”

It continued, “Our purpose in presenting a monthly periodical, “Digest of Treatment,” free from any suggestion of advertising bias, is three-fold: first, to bring to the practitioner, in brief form, the newer developments in the technic of treatment; second, to stimulate an interest in the worthwhile current medical literature today; and third, to bring to those physicians who have become defined as specialists, a well-rounded viewpoint regarding branches of medicine other than their own.”

The editorial added, “Each month, Medical Editors, every one a clinical practitioner, carefully select, from over two hundred journals, material to be condensed.  In their selections they choose both the favorable and unfavorable reports, realizing that the physician is keenly interested in the unbiased evaluation of the therapy he contemplates trying. The digests and condensations, selected and made by men of clinical experience, fill a need expressed by physicians many times.”

Digest of  Treatment continued, “No physician engaged in practice has available the complete current literature of the medical profession, nor does he have the time to look over thoroughly more than three or four periodicals. The presentation of outstanding articles in this convenient form, “Digest of Treatment,” saves the practitioner many hours of research.”

The editorial concluded by stating that, “The editors will always welcome suggestions and criticisms from their fellow workers. They invite a hearty participation in the enterprise through which they serve the interests of medicine. All communications will find a receptive ear.”