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(Circulation Research. 2003;92:253.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorials

Circulation Research

Reflections on the Founding Editor, Carl J. Wiggers

Eugene Braunwald

From the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Mass.

Correspondence to Eugene Braunwald, MD, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 75 Francis St, Boston, MA 02115. E-mail ebraunwald@partners.org

Key Words: Circulation Research • American Heart Association • cardiovascular physiology • basic science

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

The opportunity provided me by Dr Marbán, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Circulation Research, to reflect on my early contacts with the journal, naturally brings to mind 1953, the year of its founding. It was an exciting time for cardiovascular research. The United States had largely recovered from the trauma of World War II, and an internal enemy, cardiovascular disease, had replaced the external enemies as the greatest threat to the nation. The National Heart (now the National Heart, Lung, and Blood) Institute had recently been established, and the American Heart Association had been reorganized to sharpen its focus on scientific activities. Substantial financial support for cardiovascular research and training was becoming available for the first time, and a variety of technologies that had been developed or perfected during the war were being applied to the study of the heart and circulation. The American Heart Association, which had published Circulation since 1950 (and before that, the American Heart Journal), foresaw the expansion of cardiovascular research and wisely established the first journal devoted entirely to this subject.

At the time, physiology was the unchallenged "queen" of the cardiovascular sciences, and Carl J. Wiggers, the unchallenged "king" of cardiovascular physiology. He was the obvious choice to be the founding editor of Circulation Research, and the Heart Association was fortunate that he was stepping down from the chairmanship of Physiology at the (then) Western Reserve University Medical School and could devote his considerable energies, intellect, and prestige . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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