100th Anniversary of Nagoya J Med Sci: From the Editor-in-Chief
Nagoya J. Med. Sci. 85. 1–4, 2023
doi:10.18999/nagjms.85.1.1

Toward the next century of the Nagoya Journal of Medical
Science: message from the Editor-in-chief
Shinya Toyokuni
Department of Pathology and Biological Responses, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine,
Nagoya, Japan

This is an Open Access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
License. To view the details of this license, please visit (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

It is my great pleasure and honor as the Editor-in-chief to congratulate the centennial anniversary of the Nagoya Journal of Medical Science in 2023 with all the editorial board members
and the technical staffs as well as the authors and the readers. One hundred years are quite along period, and the persistent publication from a medical school of national university in Japan
has not been so easy. Especially, the publication was suspended from 1940 to 1950 due to theWorld War II.
The title of the first paper of this journal (formerly, Aichi Journal of Experimental Medicine)in 1923 is “On the agglutinin of Spirochaeta ikterohaemorrhagiae, in particular, a detection
method for it and the agglutinin analysis in experimental Weil’s disease of the rabbit” by Shiro
Oba.1 In those days, various infectious diseases were a major cause of human death and we
can find a lot of titles on these topics. It is intriguing to note that many of the papers till 1939
were written in German, reflecting a strong influence of the German scientific cultures on theJapanese medicine. In 2016, Helmut Sies, a present member of international advisory board of
our journal, described on the German-Japanese relationships in biochemistry.2 All the covers ofthe Nagoya Journal of Medical Science (NJMS) are listed in Fig. 1.

Accepted: July 4, 2022
Corresponding Author: Shinya Toyokuni, MD, PhD
Department of Pathology and Biological Responses, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine,
65 Tsurumai-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466-8550, Japan
Tel: +81-52-744-2086, Fax: +81-52-744-2091, E-mail: toyokuni@med.nagoya-u.ac.jp
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Shinya Toyokuni

Vol. 1 (1923)

Vol. 2 (1927)

Vol. 42 (1979)

Vol. 14 (1951)

Vol. 54 (1992)

Vol. 20 (1957)

Vol. 55 (1993)

Vol. 67 (2005)

Fig. 1 All the covers of the Nagoya Journal of Medical Science
This journal was called as Aichi Journal of Experimental Medicine from 1923 to 1924.

Table 1 shows the successive editor(s)-in-chief of NJMS after the World War II. NJMS has
been for a long time a print-only journal, distributed mainly to the affiliated hospitals of theNagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, which exceeded 50 in the Tokai area of Japan.
When I succeeded the position of Editor-in-chief from Prof. Nobuyuki Hamajima,3 we decided
to make a dramatic change to make this journal open access.4 On April 23, 2010, we launcheda web site for this journal (https://www.med.nagoya-u.ac.jp/medlib/nagoya_j_med_sci/index.html)
in collaboration with the medical library of Nagoya University, which enabled immediate andfree-of-charge access to the audience worldwide. Furthermore, NJMS has been selected forinclusion in Thomson Reuters Web of Science and MEDLINE, and NJMS started to receive
Impact Factor since 2013. Currently, everybody can access to all the papers of NJMS from its
foundation in 1923 on the web.

Table 1Post World War II Editor(s)-in-chief of the Nagoya Journal of Medical ScienceYear

Vol (Number)

Editor(s)-in-chief

Speciality

1951

14(1)

K. Hotta

Biochemistry

K. Nobechi

Public HealthT. Muramatsu

Psychiatry

K. Hotta

Biochemistry

K. Nobechi

Public Health

S. HibinoInternal Medicine

T. Muramatsu

Psychiatry

K. Hotta

Biochemistry

C. Togari

Anatomy1951–53

1954–56

14(2)–16(4)17(1)–18(5/6)

Nagoya J. Med. Sci. 85. 1–4, 2023

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Shinya Toyokuni

1957

1957–62

1962–64

1964

19(1)–19(4)20(1)–24(4)25(1)–26(3)26(4)

K. Nobechi

Public Health

S. HibinoInternal Medicine

T. Muramatsu

Psychiatry

K. Hotta

Biochemistry

S. Sugiyama

AnatomyS. HibinoInternal Medicine

T. Muramatsu

Psychiatry

Yoshio Hashimoto

Surgery

Susumu HibinoInternal Medicine

Zengo Kanda

Pharmacology

Shooichi Suginyama

AnatomyYoshio Hashimoto

Surgery

Susumu HibinoInternal Medicine

Ryo ItoPhysiology

Shooichi Sugiyama

AnatomySusumu HibinoInternal Medicine

Ryo ItoPhysiology

Kazuo Ogasawara

Bacteriology

Shooichi Sugiyama

Anatomy1964–66

27(1)–28(2)Ryo ItoPhysiology

1966–6928(3/4)–32(1)Masasumi Miyakawa

Pathology

1970–7232(2)–34(4)Shooichi Sugiyama

Anatomy1972–7535(1)–37(3/4)

Hiroshi Okada

Preventive Medicine

1975–7938(1/2)–41(1–4)

Nobuo Kumada

Physiology

1979–8342(1/2)–45(3/4)

Kunio Aoki

Preventive Medicine

1984–9146(1–4)–53(1–4)

Kiyohide Kojima

Cancer Biology

1992–9754(1–4)–60(1/2)

Izumi Nakashima

Immunology

1997–2001

60(3/4)–64(3/4)

Yukihiro Nishiyama

Virology

2002–0665(1/2)–68(1/2)

Seiji Kojima

Pediatrics

2006–1068(3/4)–72(1/2)

Nobuyuki HamajimaPreventive Medicine

2010–72(3/4)–

Shinya Toyokuni

Pathology

Modified from N Hamajima.3

After these efforts, we started to receive more submitted papers and thus the publication ofNJMS has become quarterly since 2016 (Fig. 2). The contents are quite various but of intenseworldwide medical interest currently. The titles of top 3 highly cited articles are “Mechanisms ofasbestos-induced carcinogenesis”,5 “Uremic toxicity of indoxyl sulfate”6 and “Neuroinflammationin motor neuron disease.”7 At this occasion of centennial anniversary, we decided to ask theauthors of highly cited articles to write their comments or consequences of their articles, which
are included in this issue.
Nagoya J. Med. Sci. 85. 1–4, 2023

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Shinya Toyokuni

Fig. 2The number of submissions, published articles and total citationof Nagoya Journal of Medical Science in recent years

Nagoya University School of Medicine has just celebrated its 150th anniversary of foundationin 2021. As a celebration event, Nagoya University Medical Museum was established inside themedical library. NJMS publishes original and review papers in the areas of medical science andits related fields from all over the world. However, we are keen on the important medical topics
in this local area and the associated medical doctors/scientists, such as the issues on COVID-19
in the Tokai region.8,9Lastly, I would like to thank all the reviewers for their efforts to increase the quality ofNJMS. I really hope that NJMS would continue to provide a high-quality forum for medical
science in the next century.

REFERENCES
1Oba S. Über das Agglutinin von Spirochaeta ikterohaemorrhagiae, insbesondere eine Nachweismethode dafürund die Agglutininuntersuchung bei der experimentellen WeiIschen Krankheit des Kaninchens. Nagoya JMed Sci. 1923;1(1):1–20.
2 Sies H. German-Japanese relationships in biochemistry: a personal perspective. Nagoya J Med Sci.
2016;78(4):335–347. doi:10.18999/nagjms.78.4.335.
3 Hamajima N. Message from the new ediotr-in-chief. Nagoya J Med Sci. 2006;68(3–4): 97–99.
4 Toyokuni S. Toward a new era of the Nagoya journal of medical science: message from the new editorin-chief. Nagoya J Med Sci. 2010;72(3–4):107–109.
5 Toyokuni S. Mechanisms of Asbestos-Induced Carcinogenesis. Nagoya J Med Sci. 2009;71(1–2):1–10.
6 Niwa T. Uremic toxicity of indoxyl sulfate. Nagoya J Med Sci. 2010;72(1–2):1–11.
7 Komine O, Yamanaka K. Neuroinflammation in motor neuron disease. Nagoya J Med Sci. 2015;77(4):537–549.
8 Kudo N, Tanaka A, Ishii H, et al. Editors’ Choice Prevalence of acute coronary syndrome during thepandemic of COVID-19 in the Tokai Region of Japan. Nagoya J Med Sci. 2021;83(4):697–703. doi:10.18999/nagjms.83.4.697.
9 Ogasawara M, Uematsu H, Hayashi K, Osugi Y. Editors’ Choice Developing online lectures using
text mining reduces health workers’ anxiety in non-epicenter areas of COVID-19. Nagoya J Med Sci.
2022;84(1):42–59. doi:10.18999/nagjms.84.1.42.
References End4
Nagoya J. Med. Sci. 85. 1–4, 2023
doi:10.18999/nagjms.85.1.1