With this issue the Journal embarks on a dual venture—a shift to metrification and a new editor.
Henceforth all measurement units are to be in what physicists call the centimeter-gram-second (cgs) system, which superseded the footpound-second system many years ago. The United States remains one of the few nonmetrical societies in the Western World, and the American Journal of Diseases of Children together with other American Medical Association journals is proud to have a role in furthering the cause of metrification in this country. (What is needed now is someone to compose proverbs and aphorisms in metric terms!)
With regard to the second venture, my hope is to emulate the editorial prowess of my predecessor, Ashley Weech, and to build on the foundation he has so skillfully laid this past decade. The Journal will remain oriented towards the broad avenues of pediatrics—the clinical, the educational, the investigative, and the societal.