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Centenary Review Article
immediately discussed in the following months,113 and very soon the idea of the neoplastic origin of leukemias became a fact adopted by the international community of hematologists.
In the following years, the journal continued to publish significant works on many areas of blood morphology and pathology, for example, on the relationship between pul- monary tuberculosis and hematopoiesis,114,115 in splenecto- my in aplastic myelosis,116 on a form of familial leukemia,117 on chronic erythremic myelosis,118 and others. The number of articles was, however, drastically reduced, and there were no published contributions from foreign research centers.
Ferrata died suddenly in 1946, and the direction of Haematologica was assigned to Giovanni Di Guglielmo (from 1946 to 1960) and then to Paolo Introzzi (from 1961 to 1973). However, the negative trend steadily continued and the decline also affected the other traditional European hematologic journals, like Blut, Folia haematologica, Le sang, that stopped publishing and disappeared from the scene. At the beginning of the '70s, Haematologica had only about a hundred subscribers divided between libraries and Italian hematologists, mostly related to the Ferrata school. This was the editorial situation in 1973 when Edoardo Storti became president of the Italian Society of Haematology and director of the journal.
A second beginning
Storti decided that it was worth attempting to revive the magazine and co-opted his pupils Sergio Perugini (1925-1979) as Assistant Editor and Edoardo Ascari as Scientific Secretary.119 With a respected publisher, "Il Pensiero Scientifico Editore", which could ensure the con- tinuity and regularity of publication, the new adventure began. From the beginning, Storti decided to promote the diffusion of the journal on the national and international stage, trying to increase the number of articles published in English, or, at least, to always provide a summary of the work in English. The journal management selected some Italian and foreign hematologists to ensure a rigor- ous and proper peer review of the articles submitted. Having taken these first steps, and seeing the credibility of the journal subsequently increase, from 1978, Haematologica was placed under an observation procedure by the Institute of Scientific Information. Its bibliometric impact, however, was initially very low.
In 1983, Storti, in agreement with the heirs of Ferrata, gave birth to the “Ferrata Storti Foundation”, becoming its first president, and providing it with a substantial finan- cial endowment. Its purpose was “to promote and encourage studies and research on blood diseases and their treatment”.120,121 One of the aims of the Foundation was “the support and the strengthening of Haematologica”, which in the meantime had become the oldest surviving journal on blood diseases. Meanwhile, the number of arti- cles coming from abroad was steadily increasing. Ferrata’s heirs, who were the owners of Haematologica, donated it to the Ferrata Storti Foundation, and from 1985, the jour- nal began to be published completely in English. In 1990, Storti passed the role of Editor to Edoardo Ascari with Mario Cazzola as Assistant Editor. At the same time, the journal was elected as the official organ of the Italian
Society of Hematology and, since 1997, also of the Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy. Mario Cazzola became Editor of the journal in 2002 and, thanks to the endeavors of Emili Montserrat and Robin Foà, in 2005, Haematologica became the official organ of the European Hematology Association.122 In that same year, Robin Foà became co-editor of the journal with Cazzola, joined by a team of 12 Associate Editors.
Ever since Haematologica has been published online, the management of the magazine and the Ferrata Storti Foundation have adopted the Open Access publishing mode. In the '80s and '90s, the Impact Factor (IF), which by the first evaluations was very low (in 1982 it was 0.409), grew slowly but steadily,123 then to increase strongly in the first decade of the new century, thanks also to the commitment of Cazzola during the period of his management of the journal between 2002 and the end of 2011.
From the first of January 2012, Jan Cools was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Haematologica with Luca Malcovati as Deputy Editor. The Ferrata Storti Foundation has contin- ued to promote and financially support the journal under the presidency of Edoardo Ascari (since 2002) and subse- quently of Carlo Balduini. The last change in manage- ment of Haematologica came in 2018, when Luca Malcovati became Editor-in-Chief.
The last twenty years have seen a major transformation of the journal and it has become a reference point for studies in every field of hematology. All those who have contributed to making Haematologica great in the past hundred years, thanks to the scientific contributions they have made to the journal, have laid the foundations for an equally radiant second centenary.
A great past is the hope for an equally great future.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Carlo Balduini, president of the Ferrata Storti Foundation, for his great help in preparing this article.
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