The Journal's interest in international medical communication has a long history. The first foreign-language publication of The Journal of the American Medical Association began in 1919. With support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Medical Association (AMA) published a twice-monthly Spanish edition that was eventually sustained by 5000 paid subscriptions in Spain and Latin America. The AMA and the Rockefeller Foundation later withdrew their support, and the edition ceased publication in 1927.1
In 1947, as part of agreements made between the US Department of State and the AMA, a Japanese-language edition of THE JOURNAL began. It was a condensed version produced by a commercial Japanese publisher and reached a peak circulation of about 5000. It ceased publication in 1958, after the Japanese had developed a variety of their own postwar scientific medical journals.
Following these two historically interesting but uneasy beginnings, Dr Robert Moser began a second Spanish