T. S. Eliot said it: "Tradition cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor." The Annals of Surgery has the longest tradition of the American general surgical journals. It has, by dint of the labor of a series of distinguished editors, lived up to its tradition of excellence for over 88 years. As the guard changes again in 1974, readers of the surgical literature will applaud the appointment of David C. Sabiston, MD, Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Duke, as the new Chief Editor. Dr. Sabiston, trained under Alfred Blalock at Johns Hopkins and called to the post at Duke in 1965, has shown his editorial talents in his own scholarly writings and in his editorship of the newest edition of Christopher's Textbook of Surgery.
John Mulholland, then editor, noted in 1959 at the 75th birthday of the Annals, that until