Otology Jubilee: 150 years of the Archiv für Ohrenheilkunde “Where do we come from?—Where are we?—Where are we going?”

Excerpt

In 2014, our specialty Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, celebrated an important jubilee. One hundred and fifty years ago, in 1864, the German journal Archiv für Ohrenheilkunde (Archive of Otology, AfO), the ancestor of the European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology and Head & Neck, was founded by three famous otologists: Anton von Tröltsch (1829–1890) from Würzburg, Adam Politzer (1835–1920) from Vienna, and Hermann Schwartze (1837–1910) from Halle/Saale. At the time of its initial publication, it was the world’s first journal solely devoted to otology; and thus it became the first such journal in the later field of Otorhinolaryngology. The foundation of the AfO in 1864 occurred in a good context regarding the general history of medicine and at a favorable moment with respect to the development of medical specialties and specialized medical journals [1]. After approximately half a century, in 1915, the Archiv für Ohrenheilkunde became an otorhinolaryngological journal, the Archiv für Ohren-, Nasen- und Kehlkopfheilkunde (Archive of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology) [2]. Throughout the next decades, the journal’s name changed many times. It was published in English beginning in 1990, and since 2004 has been named European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology and Head & Neck. …